Highschool DxD: Return of the Sith
by halokid40
Summary: Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis were on their way to Muunilinst in their starship when they woke up to find themselves caught in an unknown planet's atmosphere. Little did they know, Darths Bane and Zannah once lived in the Underworld and brought hell to the mythologies. Will Tenebrous and Plagueis find a way back to their home galaxy like their predecessors once did?
1. Author's Note

Hello followers and newcomers!

I wanted to post my new story title in advance so you guys can have an idea of what my sequel is going to be about. As you can probably tell from the story photo, the sequel will cover the tales of Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis in the world of Highschool DxD! The story will take place roughly 2 years before Tenebrous' death on the planet Bal'demnic. For your information, there will be no prologue or recorded files section like my previous story, and will jump right into Chapter 1.

For anyone who has not read my first story called Highschool DxD: Rule of Two, you do not have to worry; this sequel will act as enough of a stand-alone for you to understand what had happened in the first story. However, I do recommend that you read the first story if you would like to understand the storyline in greater detail. (Rule of Two link: s/13209029/1/Highschool-DxD-Rule-of-Two)

It may still be a while before I get the story started and the first chapter up and running. I plan on making this sequel just as long as Rule of Two or perhaps a little shorter, but that could change. I will make updates to this author's note to let you guys know about story progress and other things. The updates will be in the form of 'edits' posted below this paragraph (ex: Edit 1, Edit 2, etc.).

Edit 1: I just finished reading the _Darth Plagueis _novel and other Star Wars material, and I will begin writing the first chapter soon. It is still unknown at this point when the chapter will be published, but I will put in another 'edit' at some point.

Edit 2: I've got quite a bit of the first chapter typed up, and I'm going to try to publish it in roughly a week.


	2. Rude Awakening

**Rude Awakening**

Darth Plagueis slowly opened his eyes, waiting for the blurriness to subside. He gazed upon the overhead control panels above his seat, then fixed his stare at the consoles and screens in front of his torso. The Muun was sitting in the co-pilot seat of a high-tech spacecraft built by his Master, Darth Tenebrous. Plagueis never recalled falling asleep during the hyperspace jump to Muunilinst, in fact he remembered being wide awake and full of energy. Plagueis looked to his left and saw Darth Tenebrous unconscious in the pilot seat, his head reclined back against the seat's headrest. Something must have happened for Tenebrous to be unconscious, since Bith have evolved to forgo the need for sleep, requiring only a few hours of light meditation instead. Wondering what else had happened, Plagueis focused his attention on the computers in front of him.

While conducting a basic systems check, a warning alarm went off above Plagueis's head. The red flashing light indicated "upcoming terrain" within the flight path. Plagueis figured it was a system malfunction, so he attempted to turn off the alarm, but something told him that he should look out the cockpit windows with his own eyes. He deactivated the window tints and was able to see the blackness outside. For a moment Plagueis expected to see that the ship was still in hyperspace, but his eyes quickly spotted a fast approaching mountain peak. The Muun immediately pulled back on his control column to take the starship into a rapid climb, narrowly missing the mountain peak. The quick change in momentum brought Tenebrous back to a conscious state, but he wasn't fully alert yet.

Plagueis looked over at his drowsy mentor. "Master, wake up!"

Tenebrous jolted upright, now fully alert. He looked to the right and observed his apprentice disabling several alarms in the cabin.

"What happened?" Tenebrous asked.

"I just avoided a mountain," Plagueis replied. "My navigation systems indicate that we are out of hyperspace above an unknown planet. Ten thousand meters and climbing."

Tenebrous rushed through the inputs and commands on his own consoles, analyzing the ship log, hyperspace drive and current trajectory. He blinked in confusion.

"How did we exit hyperspace? The ship log does not show any accounts of altered intersystem course," said Tenebrous.

"I don't know," Plagueis responded. "You and I somehow fell into unconsciousness, and I am positive that we didn't change hyperspace lanes along the way."

Tenebrous shook his head. "Check how far we are from Muunilinst."

While Tenebrous checked the hyperspace systems again, Plagueis opened the destinations and coordinates log on his console. He tapped a series of commands over and over, but each attempt failed with a message that said "ERROR".

"The log can't pick up Muunilinst. Did the ship receive any damage?" Plagueis said while leveling out the altitude of the starship.

Tenebrous pushed a few buttons. "No damage."

Both Sith Lords sat in silence for several moments, trying to think of what could have brought them to this unknown planet.

"I did not design this ship to have a mind of its own," Tenebrous huffed. "Are there any settlements on this planet?"

Plagueis activated the ship's surface scanner. "The nearest settlement is 290 kilometers away."

"Take us there," Tenebrous ordered.

While Plagueis flew the starship, Tenebrous looked at the coordinates log for himself. Shifting forward in the captain's seat, the Bith rebooted the system and tried to lock onto Muunilinst. After the failed attempt, he tried locking onto the coordinates of important planets like Kuat, Alderaan, Nar Shaddaa and even Coruscant. Each set of coordinates failed to load. Tenebrous flipped many switches and overrode some commands to set the system into an alternate frequency mode that few beings in the galaxy knew how to operate. Despite his efforts, the computer failed to pick up any of the planets on its scanner.

Frustrated, Tenebrous put his forehead to his hand. "We may have to delay the meeting with the Banking Clan."

Plagueis glanced over his shoulder and said, "There's no need to get too disappointed, Master. We can use the ship's log to show them proof of a hyperspace anomaly that delayed us. Or I can pull a few strings with Larsh Hill and the Chairman."

"That will do," Tenebrous acknowledged.

Tenebrous and Plagueis were on their way to Muunilinst to meet with the Chairman and other Muun associates of the InterGalactic Banking Clan (IGBC), as Rugess Nome and Hego Damask, to get funding and production rights for Tenebrous's new starship design. The design is a high-quality exploration/transport vessel that will cater to rich individuals; it is not ridiculously expensive, but a buyer would still need some deep pockets to purchase the ship. An upgrade to Tenebrous's Sailor-class transport for middle-class buyers, the new design could take a wealthy family on a trip across the galaxy at low fuel costs and with revolutionary hyperspace jump accuracy. Tenebrous was hoping to make a good profit off this design, but now he and Plagueis must deal with this unexpected situation.

"Fifty kilometers and closing," Plagueis updated to his Master.

Plagueis put the ship on a slow descent while Tenebrous fiddled with the surface scanner. The computer showed him that there are many other settlements across the world, but none of them are recognizable to the ship's coordinates log. In fact, the entire planet was unknown to the coordinates system.

Plagueis activated the ship's stealth system as he flew over the city's infrastructure, effectively rendering the vessel virtually invisible to the naked eye and undetectable to radar. He circled the city once, then found a secluded spot in a forest just outside the city limits. Plagueis slowed the vessel down as he descended it towards the open patch of grass. Tenebrous looked at his altimeter, then Plagueis's own on the first officer side, just as the Muun deployed the ship's landing gear.

Tenebrous read the altitude to his apprentice. "Two hundred meters…one hundred meters…fifty meters."

The ship landed gracefully in the tall grass with a soft 'thud' of the landing gear. Plagueis decloaked the ship and shut down several systems, then turned off the main thrusters. Tenebrous was out of his seat checking over their personal equipment, and once he was done Tenebrous hit the switch that descended the ship's ventral exit ramp. Plagueis approached his Master, and with a slight turn, retrieved his lightsaber hilt from Tenebrous's hand. The two Sith walked down the ramp, closing the airlock behind them, and set foot on the damp grass. It was the apex of night, pitch-black everywhere, but the Force heightened their senses as they strode across the open spot of plains. The Sith Lords activated their lightsabers so they can have a little extra light to see, with each one's single blade illuminating the immediate area with a red glow.

Tenebrous glanced back at his ship for a moment before passing the threshold into the woods. A fifty-meter long starship designed by Tenebrous himself, the _Mundane _is a Midpoint-class interdictor. As an interdictor, it has an advanced stealth cloak, radar, and electronic countermeasure (ECM) system that allows it to operate deep within hostile territory. And as the ship name and class name suggests, the ship also serves as a multi-purpose ship that is quite average at everything: two large laser cannons and a proton torpedo launcher for decent offense, good shielding and lightweight armor plating, okay speed and maneuverability, and sufficient cargo space and logistics. Tenebrous designed the ship with the main purpose of versatility in mind; a ship that can sneak him into restricted or private locations, carry some cargo and fend off some pirates or mercenaries. The ship is sleek and streamlined, similar to many Naboo starships, indicating that Tenebrous invested a lot of time and resources into the ship. The _Mundane _is also the only ship of its kind in existence, serving as Tenebrous's secret go-to ship that he sometimes lends to Plagueis.

Now walking around trees, the Sith Lords scanned their surroundings while heading in the direction of the city. They walked for a few kilometers, then Plagueis suddenly stopped. The Muun had reached out with the Force for the first time since he awoke, being so caught up with the bizarre situation that he neglected the contents of the current solar system and beyond. Something was wrong…_very _wrong.

Tenebrous looked back at his apprentice who stood meters behind him. "What's the matter, Plagueis?"

Plagueis was sensing the nearby solar systems, noting how unrecognizable they were. Wary about giving off too much of his presence and powers to the Jedi across the galaxy, he extended his awareness bit by bit, feeling how each star system was unfamiliar. Plagueis eventually scanned the entire galaxy, coming to an alarming conclusion while doing so. He couldn't sense any major star systems and their planets; Muunilinst, Corellia, Fondor, Coruscant…they weren't there!

A chill went down Plagueis's spine. "We're not in the right galaxy…"

"Don't be ridicu-" Tenebrous cut himself off as he finally paid attention to the current star system.

Darth Tenebrous was too preoccupied with his rude awakening to be all that aware of the galaxy around him, but now he went through the same process as Plagueis, sensing the nearby stars and extending out slowly with the precaution of not alerting any Jedi. He then came to the same disturbing realization as Plagueis, and that realization hit Tenebrous hard like a wrecking ball.

The Bith looked down at the ground and lowered his lightsaber hand, and his left hand was clenched together so tightly that it shook. Plagueis saw the devastation on his Master's face; he had never seen Tenebrous so distraught in his entire life. Concerned, Plagueis approached the motionless Bith.

"Master?" Plagueis called out.

Left unanswered, Plagueis shouted louder. "Tenebrous?!"

Tenebrous still didn't reply. The reason that he was so troubled is because Tenebrous knew the future in an incredibly accurate manner. Unbeknown to Plagueis, Tenebrous can _calculate _the future using formulas and equations. A while ago, when Tenebrous injected himself with his maxi-chlorian invention, the retrovirus took away his Force ability to read the distant future, but that didn't matter because Bith science allowed him to calculate the future in a significantly more accurate manner. Tenebrous knew every major event of his future, and knew the likelihood percentages of certain risks or outcomes as his life went on. Whereas Plagueis's Force precognition only gave him vague and unclear images of the distant future, Tenebrous's formulas allowed him to know everything about the future…or so he thought. The Bith couldn't understand how such a bizarre, life-changing event like this could magically appear out of nowhere. Why didn't it show up in his calculations?

Plagueis halted right next to his Master. "I didn't sense any of the Jedi either. The light side of the Force feels empty."

Tenebrous raised his head and looked at Plagueis. The Bith's large, black, lidless, irisless eyes now glowed fiery orange in the center, emitting like apparitions in a sea of black.

"Which means we do not have to conceal or suppress our powers," Tenebrous said with what might have been a smile under his respirator.

Plagueis pondered on that statement, then, in agreement, the Muun allowed the dark side to make his eyes glow too.

"We need to gather information about this planet…or about anything really. Perhaps we should ask one of the locals," Plagueis suggested.

Tenebrous deactivated his lightsaber and clipped the hilt to his belt. "Yes, a sound plan."

In a quick burst, Tenebrous spontaneously used Force speed to accelerate towards the city, departing so swiftly that he nearly knocked Plagueis over. Regaining his balance, Plagueis turned off his lightsaber and followed Tenebrous with Force enhanced speed. Running around trees and avoiding low branches, Tenebrous closed the gap between him and the city, and it took Plagueis great effort to keep up with the Bith; while Plagueis had slightly better agility, Tenebrous had slightly greater running speed. The Sith Lords had covered the remaining kilometers to the center of the city with unbelievable speed, invisible to every city resident they passed. The two Sith stopped at the base of the Phenex Castle, standing near the very bottom of the rear tower.

"Who better to ask than the nobles?" said Tenebrous.

Looking up at the open window many meters above their heads, Tenebrous and Plagueis attached themselves to the stone tower with their hands and feet, climbing up the wall like spiders. After a decent climb, the Sith Lords entered through the window sill and began to sneak their way through the castle.

[…]

"I'm going to bed now," said Riser Phenex.

"Okay, good night," replied Riser's mother, Lady Phenex.

Riser exited the main lounge and made his way to the stairs where he saw some of his peerage members walking down to the first floor. He spotted his queen, Yubelluna, as he walked up the stairs, passing by to give her a playful smack on the butt. Yubelluna blushed as she glanced back at Riser who was smirking at her. Riser continued up the flights of stairs until he reached the second highest floor of the castle, where he then turned left down the hall. Just as he turned right at the next hallway, Riser suffered a strike to the back of the head that knocked him out. His body was dragged down the opposite hallway and was brought to the nearest outdoor walkway.

A little over a minute after losing consciousness, Riser opened his eyes and saw the legs of two figures standing a few meters away. When he looked up at them, he thought he was dreaming. Riser sometimes had dreams about aliens, and when he was lucid dreaming, he would confirm their false presence by doing dream checks such as checking the time and touching his palm. As such, Riser proceeded to check the time on his watch by checking once and looking away, then checking again. The time stayed the exact same and was perfectly readable. A bit worried, Riser tried to put his finger through the palm of his opposite hand, expecting it to phase through like in all his other lucid dreams. But when the tip of his finger stopped against solid flesh, an overwhelming rush of anxiety and terror seized his body.

_He wasn't dreaming…_

Riser's bewildered gaze was locked on the two ugliest human-shaped things he had ever seen. The one on the left, Plagueis, had a very elongated head that was over twice as tall as it was wide. The Muun's pale skin made his brow a lot more prominent just above the eyes, supplementing his hateful frown that seemed like a permanent feature. And Plagueis's long and flat nose hardly extended from his face, maybe a centimeter or two, and his tiny ears can only be seen from a side-on angle.

But Tenebrous, on the right, made Riser's skin crawl even more. Plagueis's face at least somewhat resembled a human face, while Tenebrous's own looked like it came straight out of a science-fiction movie. The Bith's black and ghostly dark side eyes were the size of golf balls, and them being lidless made them look even more creepy. Tenebrous's bulbous cranium made it seem like his brain was about to burst, and the multiple skin flaps on his cheeks looked like fish gills. Also, the respirator over his mouth and the absence of a conventional nose further enhanced his non-human appearance.

For their attire, Plagueis was wearing a long-sleeve shirt with what seemed to be a flak vest of personal design over it. Silver armor plates covered his arms from his shoulders down to his wrists, and silver knee guards gave him some lower body protection. The Muun also wore copper-colored pelvic armor with a utility belt over it, both supplementing his skin-tight pants and boots. Overall, Plagueis's outfit really showed off his tall and gaunt frame.

Tenebrous's clothes, while still practical, were more stylish than those of Plagueis. Silver-colored armor covered the Bith's chest, stomach, back, shoulders and arms, and the two sturdy cords of his respirator attached to his chest plate that housed other respiratory components. Tenebrous also had on black gloves that went halfway up his forearms, and a black cape with a high collar that covered the entire back of his neck. The purple sash at his waist gave some background style to his utility belt, and his black kilt worked as a good ornament to his black pants and boots. Unlike Plagueis's tall and overly thin frame, Tenebrous's body had the shape and proportions of those of an average human.

Riser struggled to find any words to speak. "W-Who are you?"

"Who we are is not important," replied Tenebrous, "but what you know about this world is."

Riser then caught sight of their lightsaber hilts attached to their belts. "Are you Darths?"

If Tenebrous had the ability to widen his eyes, they would have grown to twice their original size. The right side of Plagueis's mouth twitched, and his eyes seemed to glow brighter.

The Muun held out a hand to Force choke Riser. "How do you know that term?!"

"Darth Bane used to…live here in the…Underworld," Riser muttered. "Him and…Darth Zannah."

Upon hearing those words, Plagueis let the young man free from his deadly choke.

Tenebrous walked a few steps closer. "Bane and Zannah used to live here? On this world?"

"Y-Yes," Riser said, shivering in fear. "They ruled in a territory of one of the extinct devil clans. Did they not tell you?"

When Darth Bane and Darth Zannah found a way back to Ambria, Zannah defeated Bane in a duel to the death for the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith. Afterwards, Zannah wrote down brief excerpts of her and her former Master's experiences in the Underworld, compiled into her personal manifesto. The Dark Lords who lived after Zannah's apprentice, Darth Cognus, were skeptical of her accounts that claimed she lived in another galaxy or universe. They didn't think she was crazy, but they took her words with a grain of salt. Even Darth Cognus, who had witnessed Zannah and Bane's disappearance, was a bit dubious about the existence of the Underworld and the "mythological factions". Besides, Zannah had written her accounts in such a brief and vague manner that it sounded more like a legend than an actual experience, and she intentionally wrote it that way. She wanted her successors to focus on the Sith teachings and the Grand Plan, for those were hard enough to learn, and not get distracted by a world/dimension that was irrelevant to the goals of the Banite lineage.

Centuries after Zannah wrote her claims, her manifesto was destroyed when Darth Gravid swayed to the light side of the Force and tried to sabotage the Sith teachings. Although Zannah's dark side journal was lost, Gravid's apprentice, Darth Gean, verbally passed on Zannah's notes to her own apprentice. Generations later, that verbal legend now rested in the minds of Tenebrous and Plagueis. Being the most intelligent and powerful Sith Lords of the Banite lineage and in all of galactic history, Tenebrous and Plagueis were the biggest skeptics of Zannah's accounts, deeming that she possibly had a bad case of psychosis at the time she wrote her journal.

But now the Bith and Muun realized that the legend was true.

"I thought Zannah's story was just a myth," Plagueis shook his head.

Tenebrous probed Riser's mind with the Force, and sensed that he is in fact telling the truth.

"So did I," Tenebrous responded, "but this one speaks the truth."

Plagueis looked back down at the devil. "What else did Bane and Zannah do in this 'Underworld'? Did they leave anything behind?"

"I-I don't know if they left anything behind," said Riser, "but they caused more than enough havoc to the Underworld. Soon after they left, nearly half the devil population rebelled against the noble houses. For the past five years, it has been nothing but civil war between the rebels and the loyalists. The rebels saw Bane and Zannah as symbols of hope and power, a glorious excuse to justify their low status and supposed suffering in our society. Only my clan and a few others are free from being involved in the war. I think the other mythological factions are facing their own problems too, but I'm not entirely sure."

"Bane and Zannah left the Underworld five years ago?" Plagueis questioned.

"Yes," replied the young devil.

_Five years ago? How could that be? It's been nearly a thousand years since Bane's era, _Tenebrous and Plagueis thought.

Neither Sith Lord said a thing, then a moment later, Riser stood up from his supine position.

"Another thing to add…" Riser continued. "If you two plan on escaping this world, I suggest you do it very soon, because the factions will hunt you down endlessly if their scouts ever find you."

"I appreciate the warning," Plagueis nodded.

Tenebrous swiped his hand from one side to the other. "You will forget everything about this encounter, we were never here."

Riser's gaze changed, and he repeated, "I will forget everything about this encounter, you were never here."

Riser marched off while the mind trick distorted his memory.

Tenebrous then looked at his apprentice with a disappointed stare. "You waste your words."

[…]

Tenebrous and Plagueis were now in the library of the Phenex Castle. Shuffling through different book genres along the shelves, the Sith Lords searched for journals and documents that would help them to better understand the world they are on. They gathered, in their opinion, what seemed to be the most important and interesting books on the Underworld and other mythologies: geography, sociology, law, history, religion, biology, technology and magic books filled their medium-sized sacks that they found in a nearby cabinet.

The Phenex library is by no means a notable place of vast knowledge, but it does contain common information pivotal to Underworld culture; and the Sith Lords did find some texts that were, unknown to them, quite rare and valuable.

Tenebrous flipped through the pages of a technology textbook. "Much of their technology is millennia, perhaps tens of millennia, behind those of most Republic worlds. They do not have any vessels that can enable them to colonize other worlds, nor do they even have the capability to depart their own star system. Pathetic."

Plagueis looked at the multiple magic books in his bag. "Something tells me they channeled most of their effort into mystical practices."

"Hopefully their magical arts are not as pitiful as their technology," Tenebrous mocked.

Not quite a minute later, the Dark Lords sensed a person walking down the hallway towards the library door. They both looked at each other, then a scheming expression took hold of Plagueis's facial muscles.

The devil servant entered the library and closed the door behind him. It took a few strides before he noticed the two aliens at the back end of the room with bags at their feet. After a moment trying to comprehend what he was seeing, the servant's body vanished into nothingness. Loose pages went flying and some books scattered across the floor, but other than that, the room was left unscathed.

Darth Bane had the power to disintegrate his enemies with his Force waves, but Plagueis can _atomize _his targets with his telekinetic powers. Not only that, but the Muun also had far more control over the applications of his telekinesis, such as being able to confine tremendous amounts of power into a small area while doing minimal damage to the surrounding environment. As such, Plagueis had unleashed a Force wave that ripped the servant's body apart at the molecular level, and did nothing more to the room than knock around some loose objects. From an onlooker's perspective, the wave was all too similar to a strong gust of wind.

"The servant ran off with the library books, forever abandoning his duties for his own personal interests," Plagueis said cunningly.

Tenebrous cocked his head to the side, signifying the need for elaboration.

Plagueis explained, "Some servants may feel the need to free themselves from their masters, and perhaps steal the landlord's belongings and sell them for their own profit."

"Most servants are too weak and ignorant to leave their masters, but a brilliant idea nonetheless," Tenebrous acknowledged.

The two Sith grabbed their bags and exited the library. Avoiding some devil guards roaming the hallways, Tenebrous and Plagueis leapt from the same window sill they used to enter the castle, using the Force to slow their descent to the ground meters below.

As they sped across the terrain back towards their starship, Tenebrous couldn't help but wonder how drastically the future could have changed due to this unexpected situation. Will he still die on Bal'demnic two years from now? Once they returned to their ship, Tenebrous knew he would need to reassess his calculations and hope that his destiny did not change.


	3. New Teachings

**New Teachings**

The next morning, Lord Phenex was talking with some of his estate guards about the missing books in his library and the sudden disappearance of one of his servants.

"He must have stolen the books and ran off," said one of the devil guards.

"He was always a bit strange, but I never once thought he would commit theft," Lord Phenex spoke.

The missing servant they were discussing about was a middle-aged devil named Rasmus Cole. He was a reserved and hardworking person, and an oddball, but he was respectful and knew when to tone down his weirdness. Lord Phenex was shocked when he heard that Rasmus possibly stole some valuable texts and ran off, seeing that the servant wasn't known for causing trouble.

Lord Phenex continued. "Do any of you know anyth- Hold on, I've got an incoming call."

A small magic circle formed next to his ear. "Yes?"

Lord Phenex listened to the guard at the other end of the line. "Holes? What kind of holes?"

He listened to the guard again, then said, "Alright, I'll come take a look."

The magic circle next to his ear disappeared, and a moment later Lord Phenex looked at the three guards in front of him.

"Keep searching the library for more evidence. I need to head over to the back side of the castle," said the clan leader.

"Yes, Lord Phenex," the guard in the middle replied.

Lord Phenex generated a magic circle under his feet, and a moment later he teleported to the outside of the castle.

Emerging at the desired location, Lord Phenex looked around for the guard who called him on the magic comm.

"Up here, sir!" a devil guard called out from above.

Lord Phenex looked up and spotted four guards hovering next to the wall of the rear tower. The clan leader's devil wings extended from his back, then he flew upward to join the guards.

"Take a look, sir," said one of the guards.

Lord Phenex studied the shallow holes in the stone wall. "What in the world…"

Last night when Tenebrous and Plagueis climbed the tower, their fingers left holes in the side of the tower. It didn't look like two people climbed the wall because the stone slabs of the tower protruded at varying degrees, so the Sith Lords were able to grab onto some of the bricks without indenting the wall. This scattered the groups of finger prints, removing what would have been two linear paths of holes otherwise.

"It's hard to tell who or what caused the holes, sir. The irregular pattern makes the investigation that much more difficult," said a guard.

"Could it have been a dragon?" Lord Phenex asked.

"Possibly, but dragons aren't known to climb walls," a different guard replied.

Lord Phenex looked at the clusters of holes up and down the wall. "There's no way Rasmus did this, not when he can fly or teleport out of the castle."

Lord Phenex continued to ponder, but he couldn't think of who or what could have formed the holes.

A FEW DAYS LATER

In the time that Tenebrous and Plagueis spent in the Underworld so far, the planet had drastically changed. Plagueis's presence alone spawned the coldest winter the Underworld has ever experienced: the planet's rivers and lakes froze into ice, plains and forests were buried under three meters of snow, and earthquakes rocked several countries. On top of that, Tenebrous's presence awakened long-dormant volcanoes and enraged already-active ones to smother parts of the planet with lava and ash. Despite the absence of oceans in the Underworld, Tenebrous's presence also created powerful hurricanes that were accompanied by never-ending lightning storms.

At the moment, Tenebrous and Plagueis were in their starship reading mythological texts. All they had done over the past few days was read, eat, sleep, and read some more. As such, they covered a lot of material and completed a good number of books.

Plagueis put his book down and briefly rubbed the inners corners of his eyes. So much reading in such a short period of time was tedious, even for a brilliant Sith Lord like Plagueis.

The Muun looked at his Master who was sitting in the pilot seat. "Do we have any Jogan fruit?"

Tenebrous, who had his face buried in a book, glanced up. "There should be some in Container 23."

Plagueis got up and walked to the middle of the ship where the cargo bay was located. The bay was split into two sections: trade goods to the right and personal supplies to the left. Plagueis stepped into the personal supplies compartment and searched one of the food lockers. He then found the metal drawer that stored Container 23 and other food containers. Putting a hand inside, the Muun grabbed the sealed box that had '23' typed on the dorsal surface. With a quick twist of the lid, the smell of one of Plagueis's favorite foods flooded his nostrils.

Jogan fruit is widespread throughout Plagueis's home galaxy, a popular food that stretches from Coruscant to Felucia and Rodia. It is an onion-shaped, dark purple fruit with white vertical lines that look like forks of lightning, and is topped with reddish-purple leaves. Plagueis loves its smell and taste, and right now he was preparing to mix the Jogan fruit with some exotic vegetables to make a delicious salad.

Just as he grabbed some kitchen utensils, his Force senses spiked a warning. Plagueis felt the presence of ten beings outside the ship, and he figured they were mythological beings because they spontaneously appeared on his Force radar. Plagueis put the fruit and utensils away and jogged to the front of the ship.

Entering the large cockpit, Plagueis saw Tenebrous looking out the cabin windows.

"Who's outside?" Plagueis asked.

"Devils," Tenebrous replied. "I watched them exit their teleportation circles."

"How did they find us?" asked Plagueis.

Tenebrous thought for a moment, then responded, "Check the magic books."

Plagueis sat down in the co-pilot seat and quickly browsed through a magic journal. Both Sith Lords rushed through magic pages until Plagueis found a plausible answer.

"A tracking spell," said Plagueis. "Some of the texts must be encrypted with tracking spells."

Plagueis showed his Master the page and the spell symbol.

"Go deal with the devils," Tenebrous ordered. "I will check over the books."

Plagueis handed over the journal and rose out of his seat, descending the ventral ramp with the push of a button inside the cabin.

The _Mundane _was parked at the edge of a snow-buried forest somewhere in the northern hemisphere of the planet, and a few thousand kilometers away from the nearest major city. Plagueis and Tenebrous were shocked that someone had found them, but now they knew how they were tracked.

Plagueis walked down the ramp and stepped in the area with shallow snow, but the snow still went up past his knees. The ten devil troops were approaching the ship within the shallow snow valley that naturally formed from different snow densities and distribution. Outside the valley and the crater where the _Mundane _was parked, the snow is three meters high.

The soldiers froze in their tracks when they saw the alien slowly walk towards them. Some of the devils immediately reached for their battle spears strapped to their backs, but the squad leader ordered them to ease off their weapons.

The sergeant took a few steps forward. "We are looking for a devil servant of the Phenex Clan named Rasmus Cole. He is suspected for stealing texts from the Phenex library, and we are currently detecting those books inside that…plane of yours. Is he with you?"

Plagueis observed the bewildered faces that gazed upon his Muun body. He had supressed his glowing dark side eyes and was now hiding his lightsaber hilt behind his back, so the soldiers didn't yet know that Plagueis is a Sith Lord.

"The man you are looking for, this Rasmus Cole, is not with me," Plagueis replied.

And to give a fake answer to their confusion, Plagueis added, "I am a genetically modified grim reaper from the Realm of the Dead. I represented Hades at a meeting with Sirzechs Lucifer in Lilith, and after the meeting I found the books you are looking for in an alleyway."

The sergeant tilted his head in suspicion. "If you had a meeting with Lord Lucifer, then what is the color of his office chair? And what is it made of?"

Plagueis narrowed his eyes, not knowing what the correct answer is. If the mythologies weren't looking to hunt him and his Master down, Plagueis would have let the soldiers go, for he was not the one for pointless killing. But if these devils were able to track them, how many more will find them afterwards? Plagueis also planned on ditching the books in the forest, but now he had an even better idea.

The Muun let his eyes glow with the power of the dark side, and he ignited his lightsaber from behind his back. The soldiers were startled, and only a moment later were they able to reach for their weapons.

"He's a Darth! Open fire!" yelled the squad leader.

Plagueis sped forward and killed the sergeant's entire squad before anyone was able to fire a shot from their weapon. As the nine bodies dropped to the ground, Plagueis clutched the front of the sergeant's neck with superhuman strength. While strangling the devil with one hand, Plagueis deactivated his lightsaber with the other hand and began to drag the devil towards the ship.

Inside the _Mundane_, Tenebrous found five books that had the symbol of the tracking spell imprinted on the back cover. The Bith had them in a row side-by-side on the cabin floor, waiting for his apprentice to board the ship. Tenebrous was surprised to see Plagueis enter the ship with one of the devils.

Tenebrous looked at the hostage with a blank stare. "Why didn't you kill this one?"

"I wanted to see if he can break the tracking spells on the books," Plagueis replied. "Those five texts could be useful to us, and I would rather not discard them yet."

Tenebrous returned his gaze to the terrified sergeant. "Can you eliminate tracking spells?"

"Y-Yes…" the devil replied nervously.

The devil got down on his knees and spawned a magic circle in front of his hands. He hovered the circle over the first book for a few moments, then with a magical shimmer, the tracking spell symbol on the book cover disappeared. The devil repeated the same process over the other ones until all five books were free from the spell.

The sergeant ascended to his feet. "T-There, it's done."

"Thank you for your kind service," Plagueis commended.

The Muun grabbed the devil's head from behind, and with a strong twist of both hands, Plagueis snapped the sergeant's neck. Again, the Sith Lords would prefer that no one spreads information on their whereabouts, because why should they deal with the tediousness of more enemies if they don't have to?

Plagueis looked at the corpse on the floor, acknowledging that the squad's fate was sealed when they arrived in their teleportation circles.

Tenebrous collected the five books, then glanced at the dead body. "Get this trash off my ship."

With a nod, Plagueis dragged the corpse over to the airlock and tossed it down the ramp into the snow of the cold wilderness.

_Gremory Training Facility, Underworld_

Issei Hyoudou dodged Kiba's final speed attack by rolling to the right side, his feet landing firmly against the floor of the practice arena, creating skid marks on its surface. Kiba turned his head to the side and gave Issei a respectful nod.

"That's enough for today. Great work guys," Rias called out from the stands.

Issei's red dragon armor disappeared as he deactivated his Boosted Gear.

"Man, I thought I had you there on that last strike," Kiba said while walking.

"I think I dodged that one out of pure luck," Issei scratched his head. "You were able to get me on most of your previous attacks."

Issei was in the Gremory clan's newest training facility located just a few kilometers away from the Gremory mansion. He was training there with his close friends such as Rias, Kiba, Xenovia and more. A few years ago, Issei got promoted to a high-class devil and, as a king, was able to form his own peerage. Right now, his peerage consists of Ingvild Leviathan (queen), Asia Argento (bishop), Ravel Phenex (bishop), and Xenovia Quarta (knight). Rossweisse would have been his rook if Darth Bane didn't kill her five years ago for planning to seal away the Dark Lord, but Issei was able to find someone else to fill in the spot.

Issei's rook is a male pure-blooded devil named Amos Zane, a young adult farmer from the Barbatos clan territory of the Underworld. When the devil civil war erupted just after Darths Bane and Zannah's departure, the Barbatos territory was one of the first regions to be attacked by the rebels. Amos was a somewhat poor farmer who wanted nothing more than to live a simple lifestyle, but his loyalty to the Barbatos clan forced him to flee his home and avoid the advancing rebel army. As a refugee, Amos was able to settle in one of the towns of the Gremory territory. That is where Issei found him, and seeing great potential in Amos, Issei brought him in as a member of his peerage.

Amos has the strange and rare ability to manipulate the ground under his feet. With the use of magic circles, he is able to shake the ground and cause strong earthquakes within a limited radius to knock opponents off their feet and damage surrounding structures, and he can cause the ground to uproot or split open to trap or bury his foes. Issei's theory is that since Amos spent his whole life dealing with the earth and growing crops, the pure-blooded devil developed a keen understanding of the ground and was able to use his natural talent to manipulate it. That along with his impressive physique and strength from years of manual labor made Amos the perfect rook.

Issei gazed at the pointy-eared devil in the distance. "How was my dodge on that last attack?"

"A little shaky, but good enough," Amos shouted.

Kiba pulled down the hood of his gray cloak. "Let's go meet up with everyone else."

Issei and Kiba climbed the stone stairs in the direction where Issei's peerage and Rias's peerage were sitting.

The Underworld has changed significantly since Darth Bane and Darth Zannah's departure. When the devil civil war erupted, a sizable portion of the population formed the Devil Separatist Front (DSF), and with their propaganda and praise of the Sith, quickly turned 44% of the devil population over to the side of the rebellion. The rebels launched offensive campaigns against the devil clans that they detested, such as the Bael, Vassago, Barbatos and Sallos clans. The rebels left the Gremory, Phenex, Sitri, Agares and Belial clans alone because those clans treated their servants well and are well-liked among the devil castes. Otherwise, all the other existing clans of the "72 pillars" were targeted and attacked by the members of the DSF.

The four Satans were also free from the sights of the rebels, seeing that the overwhelming majority of devil society found that Sirzechs, Ajuka, Serafall and Falbium are the best Satans in history both personality and power wise. The Satans tried to bring order to the Underworld, but the devil clans ignored their policies; they were so obsessed with conserving their heritage, status and pride that they would rather have society collapse completely than share their power with the lower classes. The Satans couldn't really pick sides either: if they sided with the rebels, they would be deemed as traitors and they would become targets for the devil clans; if they sided with the clans and loyalists, then more people may join the rebels. Either outcome would result in more chaos, so the best option for the Satans was to stay neutral and remain uninvolved to minimize any more conflict.

Bane and Zannah's influence and actions had also changed the warfare tactics of the mythologies and the structure of their combatants. The Azazel Cup tournament, which was originally designed to prepare mythological beings for the possible awakening of 666 (Trihexa), was reformed to prepare the factions for the potential return of the Sith Lords. The factions actually considered Trihexa to be a minor threat compared to the danger of the Sith. As the Azazel Cup events unfolded, the factions developed their own unique methods for dealing with the return of the Sith.

The devils of the Underworld made significant changes to roles and training regimes of their Evil Pieces. Although the Pieces retained their original names and ranks, their functions were revolutionized: knights became assassins, rooks became almost purely defensive tanks, bishops became power amplifiers, and queens and kings became long-range artillery. The one piece that didn't change overly much was the pawn, and the only small change that occurred with pawns is that they are viewed as expendable cannon fodder more than ever before. The devil higher-ups made these Piece changes with the belief that overspecialization, gearing solely towards a unit's strengths, will create far greater team synergy; unity and teamwork that will hopefully increase their effectiveness against the Sith Lords.

The devils also reduced their interest in powerful, one-man-army heroes and now favored teams with large member counts. They believed that every sole Evil Piece should be used to empower one devil, and they now saw multi-Piece units (like knights with 2 knight pieces and pawns with 3 or more pawn pieces) as a mismanagement of resources and valuables that they can't afford to lose. The devils think that overwhelming numbers is the key potentially defeating the Sith, the belief being reinforced in such a way that Issei, with his 8-pawn value, is now criticized as a "waste of space and overinvestment of Pieces".

Unlike the devils, the Hindu faction took the opposite approach. They believe that their resources and efforts should be invested into a handful of incredibly powerful beings, most notably their strongest gods. Based on their duel with Darth Bane five years ago, Shiva, Vishnu and Indra believe that only themselves, along with Brahma, are the only ones from their faction capable of effectively dealing with a Dark Lord. As such, most of their faction's newly developed power-amplifiers and other resources went directly to them. Indra, Brahma and Vishnu donned armor plates and amulets that boosted each one's individual power level to twice their baseline values, including their speed and reaction time. As the most powerful and combatively competent Hindu god, Shiva was given silver exoskeleton-like armor that made him three times more powerful than before, and his trident, called a "trishula", was upgraded to the point where its three blades were sharper and more destructive than the blade of the True Longinus. Overall, Indra had become equally as powerful as Ophis, Brahma and Vishnu surpassed her power by a notable margin, and Shiva became over 2.5 times more powerful than the Infinite Dragon God. Whatever minor amulets and magic amplifiers were left over became the possessions of some of the lesser Hindu gods like Mahabali and a few others.

The Greek mythology took a more balanced approach. Instead of focusing solely on vast numbers or uber-powerful figureheads, the Greeks put their efforts into increasing their god/goddess and priest population, especially to replace the ones who fell in battle against Bane, Zannah and their hired Khaos Brigade army. Using magical reincarnation and other means of recruitment, Mount Olympus was able to own far more gods and demigods than any other mythology, all the newcomers serving under the new chief god Apollon. The Norse mythology of Asgard took a similar approach with Odin increasing the number of Valkyries under his command.

The most interesting and radical method was developed by Hades. Nearly a year after Bane and Zannah returned to their home galaxy, Hades found Lilith (the missing mother of Rizevim Livan Lucifer and former wife of the original Lucifer) and held her captive in the Realm of the Dead. Hades used Lilith's flesh and the Book of Lucifer to create a large army of 100,000 artificial devils, with the average artificial devil being as powerful as a high-class devil of the Underworld. This fact made several mythologies believe that Hades now has the most powerful military in the world, devising the ultimate balance between magical power and numbers. Some believe that these artificial devils, along with Hades's grim reapers, are the only things that could possibly defeat the Sith Lords.

Issei and Rias walked with their peerages to the entertainment lounge. Inside the luxurious room was three large flat-screen TVs for their gaming consoles and one massive television set up against the central wall with a TV cable and an internet router. The two peerages sat down on the priceless couches while Kiba turned on the TV and pulled up the news channel.

The female news anchor appeared on-screen with a caption saying "Millions of people displaced across the Underworld". The anchorwoman was in the process of speaking when Kiba turned on the TV.

"The bizarre weather patterns forced another two hundred thousand people from the Naberius territory to flee their homes and seek refuge elsewhere, adding on to the millions of people already displaced across the Underworld," said the newscaster. "We also have reports on two more Category 5 hurricanes approaching from the southern hemisphere and-"

Kiba switched to another news channel.

"Just a few hours ago, another earthquake hit the northern counties of the Valac territory, this time measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale," said the anchorman. "The current casualty count is unknown, but rescue forces believe the wounded and dead number in the thousands."

Ingvild Leviathan gazed at the screen with a sad expression. "It must be the Darths causing all of this. It has to be them…"

A few months ago, Indra and the Trimurti gods began having visions of two new dark entities coming upon them, similar to when they had vague premonitions of Bane and Zannah, and they warned the mythologies about their mental images. This time, however, the shadowy visions of Tenebrous and Plagueis gave the Hindu gods physical pain.

Issei got up and walked over towards the window along the back wall. He pulled back the curtains to see outside. What he saw was endless snowfall and a nasty lightning storm in the distance. Little did Issei know that the effects of Tenebrous and Plagueis's ambient energy leaked into some of the other mythological realms that are connected to the Underworld, their auras haunting those lands as well.

Issei grimaced at the sight of his ruined world on the other side of the glass.

_Starship 'Mundane', Underworld_

Tenebrous flew his starship through the snow clouds high above the Underworld landscape. In the opposite seat, Plagueis watched the system screens as usual. The Muun was finally able to have his Jogan fruit salad; he ate his food while eyeing the system displays.

"Do you have a destination in mind, Master?" Plagueis asked while chewing on a mouthful of salad.

"Not at the moment," Tenebrous replied.

The Bith was flying the starship on a random flight path across the Underworld, unsure of where to go or what to do. The books he and Plagueis read gave them no information about Bane and Zannah, what they did or who they interacted with in the Underworld five years ago according to this timeline.

Tenebrous was also running calculations in his head. Over the past few nights while Plagueis slept, Tenebrous spent hours building off his previous calculations and revising them over and over to see what the future had in store. Currently, his equations tell him that there's a 7.8% chance that he will not have his predicted death on Bal'demnic. Tenebrous was glad that his prophesied death and maxi-chlorian plan are still very likely to happen, but the failure chances are higher than he had hoped. He didn't do calculations specifically on when he and Plagueis will return to their home galaxy because he didn't care about that; Tenebrous can spend all his time in this primitive world up until the day before his predicted death, just as long as he sees his death on Bal'demnic at the time its supposed to occur.

Even now, Tenebrous still ran some calculations in his head out of paranoia.

Plagueis pondered for a bit, then came up with an idea. "Perhaps we should expand our awareness across the planet…letting the Force guide us."

Tenebrous bobbed his head in agreement. Setting the ship on autopilot mode, Tenebrous and Plagueis let their senses wander across the surface of the planet, searching for any clues or answers. They probed minds and ecosystems, and cancelled some of them out, until they found a faint whisper of the dark side. It was a very soft and quiet sense, easily overshadowed and muffled by the life on the planet and their own ambient auras, but Tenebrous and Plagueis confirmed its undeniable presence.

"Do you feel it, Plagueis?" Tenebrous asked.

"Yes," the Muun replied, "the remnant of a dark side nexus."

Bane and Zannah left behind a dark side nexus around their temporary Underworld fortress called the Sith Sanctum. The predecessors had only spent a few months in the Underworld, and it normally takes years, if not decades, for a powerful darksider to form a permanent and prominent dark side nexus on a planet. For Bane and Zannah to quickly form a temporary nexus that still faintly whispered five years later spoke volumes to their power in the dark side of the Force.

"Punch in the coordinates," Tenebrous ordered.

Plagueis entered the coordinates of where he sensed the nexus to be located while Tenebrous banked the starship to the left and turned the ship around.


	4. Stellar Search

**Stellar Search**

Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis flew their starship for nearly ten thousand kilometers to get to where they sensed the dark side nexus to be located. The nexus grew stronger as they got closer, but it still only emitted faint echoes through the Force. Whatever remained of its power will likely disappear entirely in a little more than a year.

Finally arriving at their destination, Tenebrous banked the _Mundane_ to the right and circled around the site of the nexus—Bane and Zannah's "Sith Sanctum". Plagueis deactivated the ship's stealth system while the landing gear lowered towards the deep snow outside the estate perimeter. Tenebrous shut down the engines once the starship was fully stable on the somewhat soft earth. The two Sith descended the ramp and used the Force to blow a path through the snow that layered a few meters thick. Once they arrived at the perimeter walls, Plagueis nodded in acknowledgement of his initial conclusion.

"Just as I suspected from above," said Plagueis. "There's nothing left here."

The Sith Sanctum was in ruins. Shortly after Bane and Zannah left the Underworld, some mythological beings traveled to the Sith Sanctum and burnt it to the ground. They used whatever magical powers at their disposal to annihilate the central castle, collapse the outer walls, and bury the subterranean level under tons of rubble. Only two corners of the defense walls remained standing, but they too are close to collapsing. Whoever destroyed the fortress must have really hated Bane and Zannah, and they sought to remove the site that reminded the Underworld of their existence.

Tenebrous looked around with calculating eyes. "Just because everything around here is eradicated doesn't mean there's nothing worth salvaging."

Tenebrous walked off in one direction and began searching through the debris for anything useful. Plagueis went his own way and flipped over some chunks of rubble as he passed by. The Muun wasn't looking for anything to salvage, instead he was searching for the presence that laid at the opposite end of the ruins.

The Sith Lords sensed someone at the site of the nexus when they arrived in the _Mundane_. Tenebrous seemed to have no interest in this person, but Plagueis was curious to see who or what it was. As the Muun climbed over another hill of debris, he could see someone sitting down on a large boulder in the distance. Plagueis walked closer towards the man, who was staring out at the natural split in the dense forest, until he stood four meters away from the boulder.

The man said without turning his head, "Let me guess…you are a descendent of Darth Bane and Darth Zannah."

"How did you know?" Plagueis asked.

"Only Darths would come here," the male devil replied. "Everyone else would rather forget that the Sith ever existed."

"If that's the case, then why are you here?" Plagueis questioned.

The devil continued to stare out in the distance. "I was once Bane and Zannah's head guard—the captain of their estate security forces. Five years ago when the mythological leaders stormed the fortress, my men died trying to fend them off. I commanded my men from inside the castle, and sometimes I wish I died in battle with them. I come here once a month to honor them for their service and bravery."

Plagueis walked around the side of the rock and asked, "Why did the mythological leaders invade the castle?"

The guard captain finally looked at the person he was talking to. He was greatly startled by the Muun's face and body since he was expecting to lay his eyes upon a human or human-looking person. Plagueis, with his elongated head, tall frame and gaunt limbs, is barely humanoid.

The captain shuffled and blinked. "Bane never said anything about the existence of aliens…"

"That's because he had no obligation to tell you," Plagueis replied. "Now tell me why the mythological leaders ransacked the fortress."

The captain recomposed himself and explained, "I don't know the exact reason behind it, but I believe it was because Bane destroyed Heaven and killed most of the angels. That event was all over the news when it happened, and I guess the other mythologies took desperate measures out of fear."

"I see," Plagueis replied. "And I suppose the leaders demolished the castle once Bane and Zannah left?"

"I'm not sure if it was them," the devil responded. "Rumors went around saying it was a group of religious fanatics from different mythologies that destroyed the estate. Nobody knew exactly who did it, and the Underworld law enforcement never seemed to have investigated the incident. I guess many people just wanted to keep their minds off the Darths."

Plagueis was intrigued at how their society seemed to have forbidden any sort of talk about Bane and Zannah. Though when he and Tenebrous hacked into the Underworld news broadcasts and listened to them on the _Mundane's _audio system, they discovered that the Underworld has a substantial number of rebels who praise Bane and Zannah. Perhaps they could be of use to him and his Master one day.

Plagueis scratched his chin in thought. "I wonder how Bane and Zannah returned to my home galaxy…"

"No clue," the devil shrugged. "When I served them, they were constantly in and out of the fortress, and they were sometimes gone for days at a time. I think they were searching for something, but they refused to tell me what their task was."

"Hold on a second," the captain added in sudden realization, "you said that they were from another galaxy? And you as well?"

Plagueis nodded. "What brought Bane, Zannah, my Master and I to your world remains a mystery. But we will return home one way or another."

The devil raised his eyebrows in curiosity. "Who's your Master?"

Plagueis turned around at the sense of his Master approaching from behind. "Did you find anything?"

"Yes," Tenebrous replied while revealing a damaged book in each hand. "Here are two journals written by Darth Bane himself."

Tenebrous handed over both journals to his apprentice. One book had its entire back cover blown off and half of its pages missing, but the other one was fully intact with some minor burns and dents. Plagueis flipped through some of the pages in each journal and saw that each journal entry ended with the Dark Lord's signature that simply said "Bane".

"Marvelous," Plagueis commented.

The devil captain's mouth hung half-open; he never expected anyone or anything to ever look as foreign and evolved as Tenebrous. By the looks of the Bith's huge and bulbous cranium, the captain speculated that Tenebrous is an immensely intelligent being with incredible brain processing power. The captain remained silent in bewilderment.

"Who is this man you were speaking to, apprentice?" Tenebrous asked.

"He was the captain of Bane and Zannah's fortress guards," Plagueis replied.

The Muun then looked at the devil. "I didn't catch your name though."

"Herman Krause," said the man.

"Herman," Plagueis repeated. "I am Darth Plagueis, and this is my Master, Darth Tenebrous."

Herman bowed his head slightly in greeting.

Tenebrous became interested in Herman. "Are you affiliated with any of the mythological factions?"

"Well, I'm a devil from the Underworld's Forneus clan territory, but I currently live as a solitary traveler," Herman replied. "I'm not very involved in devil society anymore, but I still have some connections."

Tenebrous and Plagueis saw the potential use they could get out of this devil.

"Come with us," said Tenebrous. "We can use someone like you on our quest."

Herman was about to say no, but he held back his words. From his experiences and dealings with Bane and Zannah, the Sith seem to find ways to utilize others that most would hardly think of, and when they want to use someone or something for their own benefit, they go at it with relentless effort. Herman realized that if he refused, his life and well-being may be at serious risk. And unknowing to Herman, his declared refusal would force the two alien Sith Lords to kill him, for they would rather not have witnesses spreading information about them.

Herman stood up and asked, "Where are we going?"

"We will tell you once we return to our starship," Plagueis responded.

[…]

Back inside the _Mundane_, Plagueis turned on the engines and thrusters while Tenebrous booted up the ship's flight control systems. At the back of the large cockpit, Herman was sitting in one of the two passenger seats that were positioned adjacently to the vacant operator chair behind Plagueis. He looked around in awe at the level of technology and engineering put into the ship; it was unlike anything Herman had ever seen before.

"Where are we going again?" Herman reminded the Sith Lords.

"Earth," Tenebrous replied, not saying the true destination.

"Do you guys have a way to get to Earth? It's outside of this realm," Herman noted.

"We were planning on having you take us there," Plagueis spoke. "Can you create a teleportation circle large enough to transport the entire ship?"

Herman pondered with uncertainty. "I possibly could, but it will take every bit of magical energy I have. I probably won't be able to teleport this ship to any specific location on Earth, such teleportation precision for a huge object like this would require Satan-level magic."

"That's fine, just teleport us somewhere above the planet's surface," Plagueis said.

"Alright, I will create the magic circle now," Herman announced.

The devil closed his eyes and gathered all the magical power he could muster. Up in the air roughly two hundred meters away from the starship, a large magical circle formed and grew in size to complement the dimensions of the _Mundane_. Once the rotating disc of Forneus clan symbols was of sufficient size, Tenebrous lifted the ship off the ground and brought it towards the circle on low throttle. Tenebrous and Plagueis saw nothing but darkness for a few moments when the nose of the fifty-meter-long starship passed through the circle's threshold.

The _Mundane _then emerged a kilometer above the Earth's Pacific Ocean. They were at a random location about four thousand kilometers away from the coast of Japan. Plagueis immediately activated the ship's stealth cloak while Tenebrous increased the ship's speed to gain altitude.

Herman was panting and sweating out of exhaustion. "So, where were you guys planning on going? China? The United States?"

"Deep space," Tenebrous answered.

Herman was stunned. "Wait, what?"

The devil was then compressed to the back of his seat when Tenebrous increased the throttle and brought the nose of the ship to a seventy-degree angle towards the sky. Plagueis monitored the ship's altimeter and flight trajectory.

The Muun called out the numbers, "30,000 meters…60,000 meters…90,000 meters…"

After passing 100 km (62 mi) above sea level, Tenebrous activated the sublight engines to speed the ship away from the planet. Within a matter of minutes, the _Mundane _cleared the Earth's gravity well and entered interplanetary space within the Sol system.

Herman was curled up in a ball, stressed out over the fact that he's in space. He thought he should be floating, but the ship's gravity generator made his mind more confused. Tenebrous and Plagueis studied through the astrogation scanner to find a suitable star for their Force experiment that would, hopefully, at least give them some insight on how to return to their home galaxy. The system can scan a star's size, mass, chemical composition and other components with pinpoint accuracy up to 5,000 light years away, and 10,000 light years with less accurate results. The Sith Lords browsed through the list of stellar coordinates until one star caught their attention: VY Canis Majoris. A red hypergiant star 3,900 light years away from Earth, VY Canis Majoris came up in an Underworld astronomy book as one of the largest known stars in their galaxy.

The system showed it's coordinates and generated a random name for it: UNKNOWN 158-89 G. Plagueis replaced the name with "VY CANIS MAJORIS" and locked the hyperspace computer onto it's coordinates. They won't be able to take a single, direct jump to the star because using hyperspace through unknown and uncharted space is dangerous. As such, the navigation computer calculated a jagged route that had several other stars as hyperspace checkpoints.

"Systems calibrated," Tenebrous looked at the navigation computer and hit some buttons. "Confirm system inputs and commands."

Plagueis double checked all the required systems for the hyperspace journey. "All systems green."

Herman, still shivering, asked, "Are we going to Mars?"

"No," Plagueis replied, "we're leaving this star system."

"WHAT?!" Herman cried.

Tenebrous pushed forward on the jump throttle and entered the ship into hyperspace.

_Lilith, Underworld_

Sirzechs Lucifer fixed his posture when the door to his office opened. Azazel, Issei, Rias, Sona Sitri and their respective devil peerages looked around the massive office room that was large enough to easily fit a hundred people. Around the room laid antique furniture, paintings, rugs and vases; the room did not lack any luxury whatsoever. They were all in Sirzechs's personal office at the upper section of one of Lilith's tallest skyscrapers.

"Welcome everyone," Sirzechs greeted. "I know I requested you all on short notice, but this is a matter of utmost urgency."

"Things have escalated, haven't they?" Azazel assumed.

Sirzechs nodded. "We all figured this global catastrophe was caused by the Darths, but the visions of Shiva and his brothers are never one hundred percent accurate. Now we have physical proof that the Sith have returned."

Sirzechs opened a file folder and took out some crime scene documents. "Take a look at this evidence."

Azazel walked to the front of the Satan's large desk and looked at the three documents on the table. Each one had crime scene and autopsy analyses along with photos of dismembered bodies.

"Cauterized lacerations…" Azazel read from the documents.

"When the Phenex clan's search team went silent, Lord Phenex thought it was just a communications malfunction," Sirzechs explained, "but it turned out that they were slaughtered. The wounds they suffered could have only been caused by a Sith's blade."

"Do you think it was Bane and Zannah who did this?" Sona asked.

"I doubt it," said Sirzechs. "Shiva told me that he envisioned ghostly, unidentifiable figures with oddly shaped heads, so I think we're dealing with different Darths."

"What do we do now?" Rias asked her older brother.

"We deploy all our available forces, including most of the peerages," Sirzechs replied. "I have already dispatched Sairaorg and Seekvaira's peerages, and the rest of our available peerages are on standby."

The Satan rose out of his seat. "All of you will accompany the 5th and 8th battalions of the devil army, where you will run scouting missions in Quadrant 4 of the Underworld."

Sirzechs then looked at Azazel and said, "I was planning on having you lead the peerage team and help command the battalions, unless Grigori needs you instead."

Azazel waved his hand. "Shemhazai and Baraqiel have got things covered."

"Well that settles it," said Sirzechs. "Also, all upcoming Rating Games and other events have been cancelled until further notice, so none of you have to worry about missing anything important."

The Satan looked at the three peerages behind Azazel. "Are there any questions?"

Everyone remained silent.

Sirzechs continued, "I want you all to head down to the first floor and talk with the managers at the front desk, they will get you guys set up with the battalions."

Everyone including Azazel turned around and walked towards the door at the back wall.

"Stay here Issei. I'd like to talk with you in private for a few minutes," Sirzechs requested.

Issei halted while everyone else walked out the door and into the hallway. The young devil approached the Satan and stopped five feet away.

"What's up?" Issei asked.

"You've been acting very different lately. Is there something bothering you?" Sirzechs questioned.

Issei tensed up and looked away with sadness and pain in his expression.

"You still think of her, don't you?" Sirzechs said in a mellow tone.

"Yes…" Issei replied with heartache.

Issei never got over the death of Rossweisse; after five years he thought he had moved on, but his grief still lingered. The weather phenomena and everyone's speculation of the return of the Sith made Issei's grim memories resurface. The young man looked down at his right hand and recalled when Darth Bane severed his arm and knocked him out with a Force push. The Gremory family was able to reattach his arm using their emergency supply of Phoenix Tears, and thankfully it was his right arm because if it was his left arm that was severed, the removal of Issei's Sacred Gear would have killed him that day. Ever since that encounter, Issei suffered from survivor's guilt because he believed he was the reason why Rossweisse died.

Sirzechs stepped forward and placed his hands on Issei's shoulders. "It's not your fault that she died, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. I promise you that nothing like that will ever happen again…this time we are prepared to fight off the Sith."

Issei looked into Sirzechs's eyes and said, "I just want this to be over as soon as possible."

_VY Canis Majoris system, Milky Way Galaxy_

After four hours of carefully traveling to stellar checkpoints and scanning foreign space, the _Mundane_ exited hyperspace in the VY Canis Majoris system 3,900 light years from Earth. Tenebrous flew the starship towards the star while Plagueis conducted a close-range scan of the red hypergiant.

"The star has a radius of 987.89 million kilometers and a weight of 25.3 solar masses in reference to the Sol system's sun," Plagueis analyzed.

"Perfect," Tenebrous acknowledged.

Herman marveled at the monstrous size of the red hypergiant star with so much passion that it brought tears to his eyes.

"Never in a million years would I have imagined being so close to a faraway star…" Herman mumbled.

Tenebrous slowed the ship down and reoriented its flight path so that it now orbited the star 2 billion kilometers away from its surface. Once the orbit was stabilized, Tenebrous put the engines on low power mode while Plagueis turned off some of the ship's secondary systems. Both Sith Lords then stood up and walked towards the cockpit door.

"Do not touch _anything_ while we do our work," Tenebrous warned the devil.

"O-Of course, sir," Herman replied.

The mechanized door slid open to allow the Sith Lords through, then slid shut a moment later. Herman had no clue what they meant by "work" or why they felt the need to travel nearly 4,000 light years away from Earth, and the unprecedented level of technology they used to bring themselves here left Herman even more confused. The devil had no mental energy to process all that information, so his mind was instead caught up in praising the unbelievable view of the red star.

Not too long after Tenebrous and Plagueis left the cockpit, a portion of the star's surface began to protrude outwards. The fiery mass of superheated matter extended and narrowed into an elongated cone millions of kilometers long. At its tip, the star plasma compressed and squeezed together so tight that it looked as though another small star was forming. The point shined brighter and brighter, and its luminosity began to rival that of VY Canis Majoris itself.

Two more cones formed on the star's surface, one in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern hemisphere. The plasma masses extended and contorted until they eventually curved to the compressed point. The three arms fed the immensely bright pseudo-star and remained this way for a while. Herman stared in utter bewilderment at the unnatural plasma arms, noting to himself that some greater force of the universe is at work.

In the cargo hold, Tenebrous and Plagueis sat on the floor cross-legged in a meditative trance. They were the ones responsible for the fiery arms protruding from the hypergiant's surface. They used their power in the dark side to keep up the act for a while before Tenebrous broke out of his trance.

"We won't be able to create a singularity at this rate," said Tenebrous. "We will need to form it through more conventional means."

Plagueis looked at his Master. "Core collapse?"

Tenebrous nodded. "Return to the cockpit, I will destroy the star."

"As you say," Plagueis replied.

The Muun got up and left the cargo hold. Herman watched Plagueis sit down in the co-pilot seat on the right side of the cockpit.

"W-Were you two the ones manipulating the star?" Herman stuttered.

"Of course," Plagueis answered. "Who or what else could have done that?"

While increasing the engine power, Plagueis could see the bright tip growing dimmer and the plasma arms retracting back to the star's surface. Giving one last look at the hundreds of millions of kilometers long protrusions, Plagueis turned the starship around and flew away from the star at maximum sublight speed.

Not too long after he set the engines to full thrust, Plagueis saw the computer schematics of the star change. The screen projection showed the different layers of VY Canis Majoris including the core, and the layers were building up with heavy metals at a very rapid pace until iron (Fe) began to form in the core. Plagueis was studying the event with his Force senses, and through the Force he heard Tenebrous give a loud clap of his hands. The Bith had just ended the star's life.

The star rapidly collapsed in on itself and exploded as a hypernova. The explosion was an order of magnitude higher than most supernovae, and two masses ejected out the sides of the collapsed star at 99% the speed of light as gamma ray bursts (GRBs). This type of explosion is second only to the Big Bang and can shine as bright as a galaxy.

Plagueis put the _Mundane _in hyperspace well before the hypernova had a chance to annihilate their ship. The faster-than-light jump was very brief; Plagueis exited hyperspace at a safe 5 light years from the explosion. The next thing to do now was wait for the hypernova event to progress.

A FEW DAYS LATER

Tenebrous, Plagueis and Herman had done different things over the past few days while waiting for most of the stellar explosion to unfold. Tenebrous worked on the ship systems and played with some of his mathematical equations while meditating during resting hours; Plagueis studied some more mythological texts while secretly using his keen Force senses to observe the devil's midi-chlorians and cells; Herman simply had nothing to do and was bored out of his mind. The _Mundane _had plenty of food and supplies to comfortably live without any problems.

The Sith Lords were now in their respective cockpit seats while the ship made its way through the short hyperspace jump back to the site of the hypernova. The reason they came to VY Canis Majoris in the first place was to form a black hole which, in their opinion, could give them insight on how to return to their home galaxy. They knew that Darths Bane and Zannah found a way back to their galaxy, but what they found in the Underworld so far isn't helping them very much. Perhaps they could have spent more time and effort on finding people who worked with their predecessors, but the Bith and the Muun wanted to see if they could develop their own way back to their galaxy.

Whether it was out of logic, curiosity or pride, Tenebrous and Plagueis always tried to do things solely on their own first before seeking help from others. They felt that experimenting with a black hole through the Force will give them more answers than what they received so far, and if possible, they will try to use the dark side to return to their galaxy. There's only one way to find out…

The _Mundane_ exited hyperspace at the edge of the VY Canis Majoris system. Right away, Tenebrous and Plagueis sensed the existence of a black hole in the middle of the incredibly hot nebula that still continued to expand. The presence of the black hole was unmistakable: it is a portion of space completely void of the Force, and its strange gravitational effects are so disturbing that it had Tenebrous and Plagueis on edge.

The remnant gas clouds of the hypernova explosion continued to expand at a rapid rate, and the area still boiled at many tens of millions of degrees. As the starship approached the explosion site, the Sith Lords knew they had to cool down the area to prevent their ship and themselves from being vaporized. With a gathering of power and concentration, Tenebrous and Plagueis used the Force to push the colossal nebula and tremendous heat away from the black hole. Some clouds of gas were consumed by the black hole while the rest was pushed "behind" the singularity and away from the _Mundane_. Tenebrous and Plagueis continuously pushed gas and heat aside while their starship traveled closer to the black hole at sublight speed.

By the time they arrived 100,000 kilometers away from the black hole, most of the gas and heat was purged from the area. The space outside the _Mundane _was still hot at 3000 degrees, but the ship's deflector shields protected the hull from the scorching heat.

The entire time, Herman was in a world of his own trying to understand the innerworkings of the aliens' powers. He had watched the nebula of gas and dust magically move itself to the side as the starship approached its destination, and as a being of average intelligence, it was hard for the devil to process the true scope of the Sith Lords' power. They had manipulated a star, destroyed it and pushed its explosion leftovers out of the way…what were they about to do now?

Now just thousands of kilometers away from the black hole, Tenebrous and Plagueis peered their awareness into it. For them, the experience was both soothing and horrifying; they respected and welcomed the power of the strongest astrophysical phenomenon in the universe, but they were terrified by it being void of the Force and its effects of disrupting the space-time continuum. The black hole itself is 150 kilometers in diameter, and just beyond the event horizon was a thick ring of gas and dust that orbited at very high speeds.

The Sith Lords couldn't sense or see anything within the black hole whatsoever. They were looking to see if the singularity led to somewhere else, sort of like a gateway, seeing that it may be possible that white holes exist. But either the singularity is the end of the universe itself or the "other end" is too disrupted by the insane gravitational forces. A lot of the stuff they sensed from the black hole is new to them, and anyone in general, because even the Banite Sith Lords before them wouldn't dare get close to a black hole.

"I can't sense anything other than the end of the Force itself," Plagueis said in disappointment. "Let's turn back."

"Not yet," Tenebrous opposed.

Plagueis glanced at his Master with a confused look. Herman was in the passenger seat in complete silence, and he did nothing but stare at the black hole in a sort of hypnotized state. His mouth hung open while his mind was filled with wonders and nightmares about the reality before him; he found the glowing disc of superheated matter absolutely beautiful, but the blackness within the event horizon looked a thousand times worse than death itself. The devil couldn't help but shake and sweat profusely in his seat.

Tenebrous was thinking hard about what to do next, and he eventually came up with a crazy plan.

"I want you to help me widen the black hole," Tenebrous said to his apprentice.

Plagueis initially had a stunned look on his face, but he then realized what they could learn by committing such an act.

"It's worth a try," Plagueis acknowledged his Master's point of view.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Herman jumped out his seat with trembling legs, "that's impossible! L-Listen, we've been here long enough…t-t-there's no need to do anything else. W-We shouldn't be playing with a black hole!"

Herman then came to his own horrifying conclusions. "If you widen the black hole, it will suck us in!"

"That's not how black holes work," said Plagueis.

"And if you don't shut up, we will eject you into space," Tenebrous stated harshly.

Herman gulped, then retreated to his seat in a cowardly manner.

Tenebrous and Plagueis entered a meditative trance and drew deeply on the dark side. Their awareness focused around the border of the event horizon with such intensity that they felt they had departed their bodies and transcended to another plane of existence. And with their incredible powers in the dark side, Tenebrous and Plagueis pulled on the borders of the black hole and stretched it open.

It was a monumental effort, but the Sith Lords were able to maintain their defiance of the impossible. The black hole slowly expanded until its diameter had grown an extra 50 kilometers in size, now resting at 200 kilometers in width. The aliens hoped that by expanding the black hole, they could finally sense what laid on the other side of the singularity, if there was another side to it. And if there was another side, perhaps in the form of a white hole, then maybe it could lead back to their home galaxy.

Their efforts were done in vain. Tenebrous and Plagueis could not peer any further than the singularity within the event horizon. Maybe the infinitely small point was the end of the universe after all…

The Sith Lords let go of the black hole and allowed it to retract back to its original diameter. Had they expanded it any further or held it open any longer, the sheer effort may have rendered them unconscious. Herman's anxiety and fear were pushed to the max: the man was as white as a ghost and his body was so tense that he could hardly move. When the black hole had expanded, his mind went blank; the act was so ridiculously beyond imagination and comprehension that he refused to believe it actually happened.

A few moments later, the ship shook a bit and the hull began to groan. Warning alarms went off in the cockpit indicating that the starship is getting close to the point of no return. The _Mundane _had drifted quite the distance due to the black hole's strong gravity, and any stable orbit around the black hole at such a close distance would have required a speed that may have torn the ship apart. They were still 200 kilometers from the event horizon, but the gravity has beginning to have an effect on the ship.

"We should turn the ship around, Master!" Plagueis shouted.

Tenebrous banked the starship hard to the left and boosted the engines to maximum thrust. While the Bith handled the flight controls, the hull of the ship groaned louder and new alarms went off.

"We're going to die…we're going to die…we're going to FUCKING DIE!" Herman screamed.

The ship's hull groaned again.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" the devil cried.

Tenebrous looked at his apprentice. "Silence that screaming child, please."

Plagueis reached back with his left arm and shot a brief stream of Force lightning from his hand. The blue lightning forks were only spawned at low intensity, but they were strong enough to torture the devil and knock him out.

The _Mundane _was now thousands of kilometers away from the black hole and free from any more gravitational effects. Tenebrous flew the starship at sublight speed to the edge of the system before jumping into hyperspace back to Earth.

_North American forest, Earth_

It had only taken them an hour to return back to Earth since the Sith Lords didn't have to scan the unknown space regions with their navigation computer, but they still took their time through their saved stellar checkpoints. They now had the _Mundane _resting at the edge of a vast forest somewhere on the continent of North America, waiting for the weak and traumatized devil to regain his strength and teleport them back to the Underworld.

"I'll do anything you want. Anything!" Herman begged on the floor of the cockpit.

"You plead to us as though you had done something wrong," Plagueis mentioned.

The devil looked up at the godly Sith Lords and said, "I don't want to go back to space, it's too dark and scary and cold. I-I've seen enough things that I don't understand, it's too much for me to handle."

Tenebrous had his back to the devil while he looked over the video footage of their stellar journey recorded by the starship's external cameras. The Bith turned around and stared at the lesser being on the floor before him.

"You said you will do anything for us," Tenebrous recalled. "Would you go as far as kill, sabotage and kidnap for the Sith cause?"

"Yes!" Herman replied.

Herman used to hate the Sith, especially after Darth Zannah took out his eye as punishment for his failure to properly secure the Sith Sanctum during an assassination attempt on Darth Bane. But now he both feared and praised the Sith after he saw the impossible feats that Tenebrous and Plagueis pulled off. He wouldn't dare oppose or anger these godlike aliens, and he felt that he could learn many valuable things from them. They are, after all, more powerful than anyone could ever imagine, and deep down, Herman always respected strength and boldness.

"If that's the case, then we will put you to good use," Plagueis assured.


	5. New Alliance

**New Alliance**

_Land of the Asuras, Hindu realm_

Vishnu killed two more invaders with a yellow energy blast. "They just keep on coming! How many members did Cao Cao recruit?"

"I'm not sure," Shiva replied while running his trishula through an enemy. "Keep the pressure on them, this looks like the last platoon."

The invaders are members of the Order of Bane. A cult created by leader Cao Cao and co-leader Georg, the organization consists of supernatural beings from various mythologies, from devils and fallen angels to Asgardians and Egyptians, who were very fond of Darth Bane and Darth Zannah and came to worship them as the ultimate gods of the world. Not too long after Bane and Zannah departed, the Hero Faction left the Khaos Brigade and formed their own cult that honored the Sith. The Order of Bane is governed by the Sacred Gear humans themselves and aided by the strongest supernatural beings that defected from their mythological factions.

The cult was named after Bane since he was the ruling Dark Lord of the Sith and Zannah's Master. The Order of Bane gained new members at such a rapid rate over the past few years that they now outpopulate the Khaos Brigade. Ever since the mass rumors of the return of the Sith reached the ears of the order, Cao Cao instructed his members to intervene any abnormal military activity in the Underworld because he knew that the mythologies would try to hunt down the Sith. The cult members hindered the search progress of several military forces and, at the order of Cao Cao, invaded some of the mythological realms through secret entrance points.

Dozens of invaders swarmed from all directions in front of the two Hindu gods. Hundreds have already fallen to the power of Shiva and Vishnu, but the cult members are very determined to strike down their opponents. The Trimurti gods admitted that the invaders are well trained, with some of them being far more powerful and competent then they expected; the Order of Bane holds a decent amount of strong beings that can give gods a good fight when working together.

Vishnu deflected attacks and launched his own magic assaults while Shiva charged up the power of his trishula. The trident glowed at its tip with such brightness that it attracted the attention of everyone on the battlefield. Then, Shiva tilted his trident forward to unleash a continuous yellow beam of destruction that ravaged everything in its path. The Hindu god moved the beam around the whole area, decimating more and more invaders at it passed by. Moments later, all the invaders were finally destroyed with no additional reinforcements in sight.

Vishnu used his magical power to fly over the dead enemies and land next to his brother.

"Great work!" Vishnu congratulated. "I'm starting to become envious over your upgraded trishula."

Shiva rubbed the middle blade with his hand. "I'll need to make sure that I don't go too overboard with this weapon. It could easily lead to tunnel vision."

Vishnu spawned a magic circle on the ground that displayed the silhouette of a Hindu priest.

"Milord," the high priest said with a bow, "how did your mission go?"

"It carried out a little longer than expected, but we got the job done without any issues," Vishnu reported.

"That's great news!" the priest replied.

Shiva halted next to his Trimurti brother and studied the figure of the priest in the magic circle. Despite the man's happy remark, something was on the priest's mind, evident by the worried look in his eyes.

"What's troubling you, father?" Shiva asked.

The high priest let his guard down and expressed his inner feelings. "The weather phenomena in the Underworld is building up again, milord. Our scout teams found thousands of devils attempting to return to their homes, believing that the disasters were over."

"Are the devils alright?" asked Shiva.

"Some of them are," the priest responded, "but many of them were caught in snow whiteouts and hurricane-grade storms. Our teams don't know if they are still alive…"

Shiva and Vishnu exchanged concerned looks.

"Have the disasters gotten any worse than before?" Vishnu questioned.

The priest shook his head. "So far, no."

Shiva thought for a moment, then said, "I think it may be time for us to join the scout teams. Tell Brahma and Indra that Vishnu and I will be spending some time in the Underworld. We will contact you again sometime soon."

"As you say, milord," the priest bowed. "Be careful out there."

The silhouette disappeared when the magic circle deactivated. Vishnu turned towards Shiva while scratching his head.

"What are we going to do exactly?" Vishnu asked. "We don't have any sort of plan."

"I have something in mind," Shiva assured. "I'm confident that it will work."

_Starship 'Mundane', Underworld_

Tenebrous and Plagueis were laying down on the floor of the cockpit upgrading the ship's electric wiring and power conduits. Each Sith Lord had their head and arms through hatches at the bottom of the piloting consoles that gave them access to the _Mundane's _electrical framework. They were near the end of their upgrade procedure.

"Rotate the red anterior cable laterally by twenty degrees," Tenebrous instructed.

Plagueis carried out his Master's order. He then grabbed his tools and bolted the wire in place.

"What's next?" the Muun asked.

Tenebrous said while handling his own tools, "Insert inferior cables 2 and 4 to 'Power Conduit 6', then charge up 'Power Conduit 7' to 50 kilowatts."

Plagueis grabbed a different set of tools and did as he was told. This is a challenging task for Plagueis since he has little knowledge about starship construction. He is well-versed in starship operation and basic starship maintenance, but working on starship circuitry and wiring is certainly not Plagueis's forte. He wished to have instead been dealing with a business or economics task, but for now he must put up with Tenebrous's engineering task.

Once the seventh power conduit was at full charge, Tenebrous flipped a few switches on the main circuit box to reactivate the cockpit consoles and return power to the front half of the ship. The Sith Lords then crawled out from their hatches and closed the hatch doors shut. Tenebrous tapped on two different console screens to assess the changes he and Plagueis made to the ship's electrical grid.

"The adjustment process was successful," said the Bith. "The ship's power distribution has been improved by 6.3%."

Plagueis had a hard time understanding why his Master wanted to make such insignificant changes to the _Mundane_, especially when Tenebrous had already upgraded the ship to death over the years, but few people will ever understand what goes on inside an engineer's head. Tenebrous is a genius even by Bith standards, and his engineering reputation as Rugess Nome is legendary.

Plagueis, on the other hand, is a different type of genius: one with profound knowledge and experience in finance and economics. In his public guise as Hego Damask II, Plagueis is legendary for his work in the InterGalactic Banking Clan and his management of Damask Holdings. As such, Plagueis accumulated far more wealth and commercial power than Tenebrous ever would.

But Tenebrous's nitpickiness over his starship is only one thing; Plagueis also wondered why his Master seems so laid-back and unruffled. At the start of their time in the Underworld, Tenebrous was stressed out and he spent much of his time pondering over things, but now he's cool and collected. It's of course good to be calm and focused in any situation, but Plagueis found that his Master is _too _calm, almost as though the Bith had discovered or achieved something of such importance that nothing worried him anymore. Plagueis wondered what that thing might be.

"I'm going to the cargo hold to meditate," Plagueis announced.

Tenebrous nodded, then the Muun walked out of the cockpit. Tenebrous sat down in the left pilot chair and pondered while fiddling with the ship's systems. Ever since he revised the calculations about his future, Tenebrous behaved with such focus that he believed his connection to the dark side had increased. Whether his dark side powers had actually grown or not, Tenebrous couldn't help but feel virtually invincible, as though nothing could ever harm him…not even Plagueis's potential schemes.

"_Foolish Plagueis," _he thought.

Plagueis had no idea that his Master could calculate the future with such precision that Tenebrous could plan for his own death years in advance, nor did he know that the Bith has the unprecedented Force/science invention of maxi-chlorians. Tenebrous believed with utmost certainty that his prophesied death will be Plagueis's undoing, and he wondered if the Muun had the guts to challenge him at all.

[…]

In the cargo hold of the _Mundane_, Plagueis sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. In his meditation trance, he thought about the things he had learned so far in the Underworld, especially from the devil texts. He and his Master had read all the important material required for them to understand the place they are in and the culture of its inhabitants. There was also a difference between each Sith Lord's inquisition on the strange world: Tenebrous lost interest after reading the major aspects of each subject, he believed he knew enough already and felt that reading any further would have been a waste of time and energy; Plagueis, however, wanted to read every text down to the last word.

Four hours ago, Plagueis had read a fascinating section from one of the biology texts, and he was now meditating on that acquired knowledge. That section was about mythological aging and lifespan. The excerpt claimed that the lifespan of a devil is approximately 10,000 years, and that the lifespan of other supernatural beings ranges from 8,000 to 12,000 years depending on which mythological faction they belonged to. Plagueis was very skeptical about those numbers mainly because no supernatural being from any mythology had even lived that long yet.

Plagueis recalled that Catholicism is a little over 2,000 years old and that the religion's "Old Testament" is about 3,200 years old. The Muun had no clue why they would think that devils and other Catholic/Christian beings could live for 10,000 years when many of their oldest members have already grown old, frail and weak. What Plagueis found laughable is that their society itself hasn't lived anywhere close to 10,000 years yet, and they still claim that absurd lifespan number to be true without any empirical evidence backing it up.

Plagueis also recalled that the world's oldest religion, Hinduism, is a little over 4,000 years old. And the chief god of Asgard Odin, despite Norse paganism being only 1,200 years old, has already grown old and weak compared to his younger self, with perhaps a few centuries of life left in him. What Plagueis found amusing was that Odin also had a father (Borr) and a grandfather (Buri) who both died long ago within the 1,200-year timeframe of Norse existence, so Odin's chronological age is far shorter than most would assume.

Based on who had lived and died in different factions throughout the mythological ages, Plagueis theorized that a devil's maximum lifespan could range anywhere from 500 to 2,500 years, no where close to 10,000 years proposed in the biology textbook. The Muun found that a potential 1-2 millennia-long lifespan is still very impressive, and he believed there may be some things he could learn from studying a devil's body first-hand, but there are already some sentient species back in his home galaxy that can live for millennia. Some long-living species that Plagueis studied are the Hutts (1,000 years), the Neti (5,000+ years), and the Gen'Dai (4,000 to 7,000 years).

One thing that Plagueis had a hard time comprehending was the aging process of devils. Devils, fallen angels and pure angels physically mature at the same rate as humans up until about two decades old, then their aging process slows down to a near halt. This means that a devil can appear to be in their 20s, 30s or 40s for centuries. Plagueis noted that devils, especially females, tend to utilize magic to appear much younger than their physical age would suggest, but there is a biological factor to it. Some of the oldest male devils in the Underworld who never used magic to alter their appearances, not even once in their lives, looked to be in their 60s at the most. With such abnormal biological development, Plagueis thought that there may be something valuable to learn about their bodies after all.

Plagueis has now finished meditating and carried out with his post-trance thoughts. He delved into his own plans for future mastery over midi-chlorians which, hopefully, will grant the Muun corporal immortality and unlimited power. Plagueis processed how the knowledge from the mythological texts could somehow help him in his quest for midi-chlorian manipulation, and he scoffed at his Master's stupidity for not doing any in-depth study on the books.

"_Foolish Tenebrous," _he thought.

[…]

The Sith Lords sensed Herman's arrival just outside the starship. Tenebrous hit a button that descended the ventral ramp and opened the airlock door. It had been a few days since they sent Herman on an intel mission, and the Sith were waiting to hear about the details. Tenebrous had planted a telepathic suggestion in Herman's mind beforehand that would dissuade the devil from telling information about him and Plagueis to the wrong people.

Herman walked through the airlock and stepped into the cockpit.

"I'm back," the devil said.

"Did you find anything?" Tenebrous asked.

Herman nodded. "I met with a rogue fallen angel who's apart of this semi-secret organization out in the uninhabited Gloom territory near the south pole of the Underworld. It's called the Order of Bane."

"Order of Bane? Tell us more about it," Plagueis said with interest.

"The fallen angel said that he and the other members idolize Darths Bane and Zannah and live a way of life that encourages personal growth and power. Their order is run by the former members of the Hero Faction, and their leader is the wielder of the True Longinus. He also said that the Sacred Gear humans had fought alongside Bane against the gods beneath the Dark Lord's fortress," Herman explained. "I don't know anything else beyond that."

"Did you reveal our existence to this fallen angel?" Tenebrous questioned.

"I did just like you said—reveal your existence to the right people," Herman nodded. "I didn't tell him your names though…in case if things didn't go well. He said that the whole order had a strong feeling about the return of the Sith, especially due to the weather disasters."

Plagueis scratched his chin in thought, then asked, "Did this person tell you exactly where you could meet his cult?"

Herman reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "He gave me the coordinates for a secret meeting place at the northern border of the Gloom territory. He requested that we meet him there at 17:30 hours standard time."

Plagueis grabbed the sheet of paper from the devil's hand and momentarily studied the coordinate numbers. He then briefly walked over towards the co-pilot seat and sat down to enter the coordinates into the navigation console. The computer then confirmed the location of the written coordinates.

"The coordinates are valid," Plagueis told his Master.

"Prep the engines," Tenebrous replied. "I'm interested to see what this 'Order of Bane' is all about."

_Gloom territory, Underworld_

Georg gazed out at the horizon in all directions, waiting in anticipation for Herman to arrive.

"You're sure that this 'Herman' person is a servant of the Sith Lords?" Georg asked the fallen angel Brexan.

"I'm not a hundred percent certain, but I believe he was telling the truth," Brexan responded. "He not only gave a description of what they look like, but he also explained their mode of transportation. That's far beyond anything the mythologies currently know."

Several feet off to the side stood Leonardo and two high-ranking members of the Order of Bane. They were scouting the land with their binoculars for any signs of Herman and the Sith Lords. A few moments later, Leonardo saw a flying object materialize out of thin air; he was unable to comprehend the _Mundane's _cloaking system.

"Aircraft spotted in the northwest," Leonardo called out.

"Spacecraft, sir," Brexan corrected.

The two groups of cult guards tasked with escorting the order's officers jogged back to their leaders at the sound of Leonardo's voice. All thirty guards positioned themselves evenly on both sides of their superiors just as the _Mundane _flew high above their heads. The starship circled the area once, then slowed and descended towards the flat ground at the bottom of the snowy hill. The ship extended its landing gear and gracefully landed in the snow.

A ramp lowered from the underside of the fifty-meter long starship, and a moment later Herman was spotted walking down the ramp. The devil then hustled up the hill to meet with the cult members.

"The Darths will be out in a minute," said Herman. "They're just shutting down some of the ship's systems."

Georg gazed at the advanced starship, then returned his attention back to Herman. "I never knew that a spacecraft of that caliber was a possibility. What's it like to ride inside?"

Herman recalled his recent experiences inside the _Mundane_. "It's…hard to describe."

Just as Herman finished his sentence, Tenebrous and Plagueis walked down the ship's ramp and stepped foot in the thick snow. Many of the cult members were mystified as they watched the two aliens approach them at a slow but firm pace.

"Holy hell they're ugly," Brexan muttered under his breath.

The two Sith stopped a few feet behind Herman and looked around at the cult members.

"May I introduce you all to Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis," Herman addressed.

Georg bowed and said, "It is an honor to meet you both. Darth Bane had once explained to me about the existence of several alien species in his home galaxy. Tell me milords…what species are you?"

"I am a Bith, and my apprentice here is a Muun," Tenebrous replied.

"A Bith and a Muun…" Brexan repeated to himself.

Georg then asked, "I'm assuming you're Bane and Zannah's successors?"

"Indeed we are," Plagueis responded. "Nearly a thousand years has past since Bane's era, and we are the most powerful descendants yet."

Leonardo's jaw dropped. "A thousand years? But Bane and Zannah only left the Underworld five years ago!"

Tenebrous shrugged. "We do not know the cause of the time discrepancy, but in spite of that, thirty generations of Banite Sith have lived in a millennium."

Every single cult member was in shock. Herman had already been told that information before being sent on his intel mission, but hearing it again still made him ponder in awe. The cult members' collective demeanor had changed from one of respect to one of submission; none of them had ever imagined meeting Sith several generations after Bane and Zannah, let alone a millennium. The amount of power these two Dark Lords possess is likely inconceivable.

"I-If thirty generations of Sith have grown stronger over the centuries, then I'd love to know your power, Mighty Ones," Georg expressed.

Herman shook his hands. "No, no, no…you don't want to know."

Plagueis chuckled. "Perhaps you will someday see it for yourself."

_Dark Base, Underworld_

Cao Cao waited for Georg and the others to return to their base. They contacted him over the magic comm saying that they will be arriving soon with the new Sith Lords, so the True Longinus wielder gathered his cult members at the front gates of the base.

The Dark Base is the main hub of the Order of Bane, acting as part town and part fortress. The base is located deep within the Underworld's Gloom territory, very close to the south pole where daylight only lasts for four hours per day. This section of the Underworld is named for its lack of daylight, evident by the major absence of trees/vegetation and the freezing climate. The cult members get their food from either ice fishing, hunting or imports from secret clients.

Cao Cao and the other Hero Faction members chose to establish their cult in these frozen lands mainly because it is uninhabited—making it more difficult for outsiders to discover them. They wanted to be so hidden that even the Khaos Brigade would have a tough time tracking them down, and it paid off by letting them grow in numbers with virtually no outside disturbance. Cao Cao was often annoyed by the constant night and boring landscape, but the seclusion was necessary. As an organization that praises globally-hated figureheads, he and his followers had to stick to the shadows as much as possible.

When Tenebrous and Plagueis's ambient auras threw the global environment into disarray, the Gloom territory was arguably the least affected place in the Underworld. The cult members merely witnessed a moderate increase in their daily snowfall and winds, but they did have a few brief earthquakes that rocked the entire landscape. But as Cao Cao waited for his search team to return, the landscape seemed to have grown eerier than ever before.

At last, several magic circles appeared outside the base and then spawned several figures. Small circles were used to teleport Tenebrous, Plagueis and everyone else while a huge circle was used to teleport the _Mundane_. The Sith Lords and their escorts walked through the strong sub-zero winds and approached the front gates that slowly opened upon their arrival. After passing through the threshold, a few cult members met with the search team.

"Cao Cao is waiting for you inside the dining hall," said the junior officer. "What shall we do with that plane of yours?"

"Leave it where it is," Plagueis responded. "It can handle far worse environments than this."

The officer and his three soldiers stepped aside as Georg and Leonardo led the group towards the meal hall. They couldn't see Tenebrous and Plagueis all that clearly due to the darkness and winds, but they could easily see their dark side eyes that glowed bright like jack-o'-lanterns.

The group soon reached the dining hall and entered through the building's main doors. After turning a few corners, the group stepped into the meal hall itself. Several rows of long tables lined the two halves of the chamber and a large kitchen and pantry made up the back side of the room. Standing in the chamber's central aisle were Cao Cao, Jeanne and eight high-ranking cult members, and along the sides of the chamber stood the chefs and janitors.

When the Sith Lords entered the room, several gasps and whispers went around from person to person. Jeanne was shocked despite having learned about the existence of aliens from Darth Bane years ago, and contrary to everyone else, Cao Cao stood nearly unfazed. He had a strong feeling that the returning Sith Lords would be beings that pushed the limits of humanoid appearance, so he wasn't overly surprised to see their repulsive faces.

"Well done Team 3, you have accomplished an honorable mission for the Order," Cao Cao congratulated. "Brexan, take your men to over to the food line to eat, I'm sure they're quite hungry by now."

Cao Cao then said loudly, "Staff, return to your tasks at once!"

The chefs and janitors returned to their duties while Brexan and his men went to eat. Georg and Leonardo stayed with the Sith Lords in the central aisle.

Cao Cao, Jeanne and the eight officers behind them bowed to the Dark Lords.

"Greetings, milords. I am Cao Cao, leader of the Order of Bane," Cao Cao welcomed. "I apologize for greeting you in an informal location, but the guest lounge is under repair at the moment."

"Formality is of little importance to us," Tenebrous stated. "My apprentice and I were just getting hungry ourselves."

"Splendid!" Cao Cao smiled. "Georg told me over the magic comm that your names are Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis."

"That is correct," Plagueis assured.

Cao Cao continued, "I don't want to keep your stomachs hungry for too long, Lords Tenebrous and Plagueis, so I'll let you eat now and we can discuss later. If you need anything, our staff will be more than happy to provide any service you desire."

"Thank you," Plagueis responded.

Tenebrous and Plagueis walked towards the back of the chamber where the food line is located.

"Milords," a voice called out to the side, "let us serve you."

The dining hall manager and four chefs stood at a luxurious dining table that they just brought out. The table is designed for two guests, but the dimensions allow it to fit a huge amount of stuff on top. They also brought out two stylish chairs made with all the bells and whistles.

"We just got here, and they already act as our servants," Tenebrous said quietly to his apprentice while they walked over to the table.

At the other side of the dining hall, Brexan approached Jeanne from behind.

"Lady Jeanne," Brexan said.

Jeanne caught a fright and quickly turned around.

"Sorry, milady," Brexan apologized. "I just came to ask if you're alright. Ever since we arrived, you looked as white as a ghost."

"I'm just a little stressed," Jeanne replied. "Our guests are Bane and Zannah's successors after all…"

Brexan then asked, "Is part of that stress also from their appearance?"

Jeanne hesitated, then answered, "Yes. I knew there was a chance of them not being human, but they're beyond what I was expecting."

The Underworld is filled with beings that aren't exactly human, from devils with elf-like ears to sentient dragons that can talk. There are also some beings that are human up above and beast down below, but even they don't compare to the Bith and the Muun eating at the table. All mythological beings are, whether by size or appearance, human- or beast-looking with virtually no mix in between. Even Hades is a human-shaped skeleton that just so happens to be alive, but Tenebrous and Plagueis are the first ones to combine both ends of the spectrum…the first ones to _break _the biological tendency.

Tenebrous and Plagueis are a confusing combination of human shape/proportions and not even beast-like appearance, but _alien_ appearance. Their non-human features and skin are evolved from those of wild beasts, they are ones that come from other solar systems. They are the epitome of foreignness, and that is what frightens Jeanne and many of the other cult members.

"Yeah, they look like they came straight out of a sci-fi movie," Brexan mentioned.

[…]

A few hours later, Tenebrous and Plagueis were inside the base's main auditorium, a different and larger building than the dining hall. They sat in two grand chairs that were attached to an elevated platform that looked over the huge crowd gathered before them. Thousands of cult members were on their knees in a sort of prayer position, all of them dead silent. Whatever members of the Order that were not on guard duty or gone on missions were on the floor below the Sith Lords.

At each side of the platform stood two large statues that were ten meters tall. The one off to Tenebrous's left side was a statue of Darth Bane while the one off to Plagueis's right side was a statue of Darth Zannah. Each pillar of carved stone were the predecessor Dark Lords wearing cloaks that blankly stared out at the audience. On the platform between the two statues, Tenebrous and Plagueis gazed out at the crowd from one side to the other, flattered that these lesser beings have come here to honor them as gods.

"All rise before the Dark Lords of the Sith!" Cao Cao shouted from another platform.

Thousands of cult members stood up simultaneously in perfect synchronization. Their sync surprised Tenebrous and Plagueis; they thought that the Order of Bane would have been somewhat amateur in discipline, but that is obviously not the case. The two aliens stood from their grand seats and rose to their full height. They quickly recalled the things Cao Cao told them after they ate, things that are likely the key to returning to their galaxy.

"On this cold and dreary night, two beings with supreme power have arrived from a galaxy far, far away," Tenebrous said loudly. "I, Darth Tenebrous, and my apprentice, Darth Plagueis, are those ultimate beings. We are the descendants of Darth Bane and Darth Zannah, the end of the thousand-year-long Banite lineage. Just like our predecessors, we have found ourselves in this strange world of yours through unknown causes. As many of you could guess, we intend to return to our galaxy to continue the schemes of the Grand Plan."

Plagueis then shouted, "Bane and Zannah found a way back to their galaxy, the same one in which my Master and I belong. Your leader, Cao Cao, had once witnessed a powerful ritual that Bane and Zannah used return to our home galaxy, a ritual that made use of a central box with incredible magical power…the power of the deceased Great Red. That container, and others like it, have fallen in the hands of the mythologies."

Tenebrous added, "From what we know, the containers were scattered across various realms and hidden from everyone. We will find these boxes and identify the one that contains the power of Great Red."

Plagueis then yelled, "Your task will be to aid us in our quest for this power: gather every word of intel possible and dispose of any enemies that get in our way. There will be no room for mercy or compassion, the Sith imperative demands it!"

[…]

Plagueis was inside the _Mundane _downloading the Underworld map from the navigation console. Tenebrous ordered him to upload a copy of it to their datapad so they can show it to Cao Cao and the others. The humans have their own map of the Underworld, but it's not nearly as detailed and precise as the one found on the nav computer.

As soon as the map was finished downloading, Plagueis detached the datapad from the nav computer. But before leaving the _Mundane_, Plagueis sat down in his co-pilot chair and opened one of the mythology texts. He flipped through several chapters until he reached the section about magical potions. When he read it for the first time a few days ago, Plagueis immediately grew fascinated in Phoenix Tears created from the Phenex clan. Currently, the section on Phoenix Tears was the set of pages he had open on his lap.

The Muun is very intrigued by the potion's phenomenal healing abilities. According to the book, Phoenix Tears can instantly heal injuries and reattach severed limbs but cannot restore blood loss or organ loss. Plagueis regretted not searching through the Phenex Castle more extensively when he and Tenebrous stole the texts that one night, but maybe that would work more in his favor. He would prefer that Tenebrous remains clueless about the potion, and even if the Bith knew about its existence, Tenebrous would likely be so arrogantly preoccupied with his Bith science that he might completely disregard the potion altogether.

Plagueis stood up and put the book away. While walking towards the airlock, he wondered when he would get the chance to get some Phoenix Tears for himself.

Plagueis thought, "_There is much to do over the next while, but someday soon I will make a second visit to the Phenex Castle._"


	6. Grand Quest

**Grand Quest**

Azazel gazed out at the multiple squads of devil soldiers hustling to their current assignments. The fallen angel wished they were making good progress on the search for the Sith Lords, but he had a feeling that the search isn't going well. Many of the soldiers lacked adequate sleep from the constant search missions, evident by their bloodshot eyes and diminished alertness.

Azazel turned around and walked back to the headquarters of the makeshift base he and his men made out in the Underworld wilderness. There were many devils walking in various directions, and as Azazel strode along, two devils were walking towards him going the opposite direction, close enough to where Azazel can overhear their conversation. The two soldiers were so engrossed in their conversation that they never noticed Azazel passing nearby.

"I don't get it," said one soldier. "Why don't we just find the Sith's general location and then bomb the whole area?"

The taller soldier replied, "Because we don't even know their general location. And I know what you're thinking, but we can't just go out and bomb the entire Underworld."

Azazel was surprised that his subordinates are already thinking of extreme ideas, but he ignored the comments and continued on towards the HQ. The Governor General is on his way to meet with one of the battalion commanders for an updated status report, and after an additional two hundred feet of walking, Azazel arrived at the large HQ tent.

The commander turned around and said, "I'm assuming you're here for another status report, sir?"

Azazel nodded. "The same drill as usual."

"Would you like to hear the bad news or the worse news first?" the ultimate-class devil asked.

Azazel hesitated, this is the first time he's been notified of "worse" news.

"Let's hear the bad news first," Azazel requested.

"All of our search teams have returned with negative results on their missions, and no intel clues were acquired either," said the pure-blooded devil. "Fatigue is also taking a toll on our men, thus we will need to decrease our search rate to revitalize the troops back to optimal efficiency."

"Many of our soldiers' eyes do look like pissholes in the snow," Azazel acknowledged. "Now let's hear the worse news."

The commander stated, "Three patrol squads from the 8th platoon were attacked by unknown hostiles while escorting their respective search squads. Sixteen of our men were killed and several others were injured, and the small enemy group retreated before we could deliver a counterattack. Our squads believe it was a targeted ambush, as though the hostiles were trying to impede our search efforts."

"Could they have been devil separatists?" Azazel questioned.

"Unlikely, sir," the commander answered. "Their uniforms did not bear the mark of the rebellion, and unlike the separatists, these attackers were well-trained and very organized. Furthermore, the enemy group consisted of devils and other races such as fallen angels, Asgardians and even vampires."

Azazel shook his head in disbelief. "Asgardians and vampires? You're sure it's not the Khaos Brigade?"

"Our witnesses were fairly certain that the group wasn't Brigade terrorists," the commander confirmed. "Their outfits didn't match those of the Khaos Brigade and their tactics and combat styles were completely different."

Azazel pondered on the details, then said, "I'll need to relay this information to Asmodeus. Keep me updated on any new traces of this militant group or the Sith."

"Yes sir," the commander replied.

Azazel left the HQ tent and walked to his personal tent nearby. Once he arrived, the fallen angel sat down on the wooden chair next to the cheap coffee table. He spawned a magic circle on the table that showed the silhouette of Falbium Asmodeus.

"Good day, Azazel," the Satan greeted. "Any luck on tracking down the Sith?"

"None yet," Azazel replied. "And to make things worse, a few of my battalion's patrol squads encountered a hostile group of militants that ambushed them while escorting the search teams. The battalion commander told me that the enemies were neither devil separatists nor Khaos Brigade terrorists, and they're skilled enough to kill and injure several of my soldiers."

"Was this a random or planned attack?" asked Asmodeus.

Azazel explained, "It seemed to have been planned, and the nature of the attack suggested that they were trying to hinder our search efforts."

"This is quite troublesome," Asmodeus frowned. "Some of my army's search squads have been stalked by unknown suspects, and when my teams closed in, the suspects were gone. I believe these stalkers are apart of the same organization as your attackers."

"Great, so they're in multiple locations," Azazel complained. "This makes everything a lot more difficult."

Asmodeus then said, "That's why I want to double the search teams' patrol escorts. Even if that means our search rate is reduced; we cannot afford to lose more search teams in combat than necessary."

Azazel sighed. "I guess we don't have much of a choice."

Unbeknown to Azazel or Asmodeus, Cao Cao and his Order of Bane are off to a good start with disrupting devil search efforts. After Tenebrous and Plagueis's grand orders were declared, the Order of Bane was now on the verge of harassing every mythology taking part in the hunt for the Sith Lords. As Azazel continued to talk with Asmodeus, the fallen angel thought back to what those two soldiers said about bombing the Underworld, and he was starting to think of it as not all that bad of an idea.

_Governor's Hall, Grigori_

Darth Tenebrous studied Governor's Hall through the spaces of a bush, as did his escort of forty soldiers from their own hiding spots. A large building similar in appearance to an American Smithsonian, Governor's Hall is the main administrative center of the fallen angels named after Azazel's rank of Governor General. The building is located in the heart of the Grigori (fallen angel) territory of the Underworld, and it is the place where Azazel, Shemhazai, Baraqiel and the other founders of Grigori assemble to make important decisions and pass legislative laws.

From the Order of Bane's current intel, a power container is supposedly stored somewhere inside the building, but no one in the Order knows whether it's Great Red's power or not. Tenebrous had read one of Darth Bane's journals handed to him by Cao Cao (which the human had taken from the Sith Sanctum before it was destroyed), and the journal contained all the information Bane uncovered about Great Red's power. Tenebrous learned about the power's appearance and how it felt through the Force, but he would need to get close to it to be able to study it on an atomic level. The Bith could sense a magical power deep within the building, but he can't tell exactly what it is.

Tenebrous looked over at the task force captain and said, "Order your men to infiltrate the main floor, I will take the upper levels."

"Yes, Lord Tenebrous," the captain replied.

The Sith Lord departed immediately and closed in on the building; he did not want other people slowing him down. While using Force speed to accelerate himself towards his target, Tenebrous thought about things he would not want to think about with his apprentice nearby. Thankfully, Plagueis is off on his own mission elsewhere.

Tenebrous was thinking about his secret apprentice Darth Venamis. A younger male Bith Tenebrous trained during his spare time, Venamis was designed to eliminate and replace Plagueis should the Muun become weak and unworthy. Venamis had been trained extensively in learning Plagueis's combat style and being able to counter the Muun's every move, and Tenebrous believes that Venamis will likely succeed over Plagueis should the Muun's death be necessary. Tenebrous's violation of the Rule of Two is the first violation in centuries where the Master trained more than one apprentice at a time.

Tenebrous had given Venamis several tasks to accomplish in his absence, so the younger Bith was likely off doing those tasks back in their home galaxy. But Tenebrous couldn't help but wonder if Venamis noticed his disappearance from the galaxy through the Force, and if so, he questioned what Venamis was doing in response to it. Venamis is a smart person, but he still has much to learn about the intricacies of the Grand Plan. Tenebrous feared that Venamis may be off doing things that could possibly hinder the Grand Plan's progress.

Tenebrous put those worries aside and focused on the task at hand. He was now climbing the outer wall of the building and approaching the roof of the building's lower portion. After raising himself over the roof's edge, Tenebrous used Force-enhanced jumps to leap onto the various layers of pillars that decorated the building's upper portion. He then leaped through a window at the top floor and infiltrated Governor's Hall.

Tenebrous can sense many people in the building, hundreds in fact. Some of them are the task force members that were now sneaking around the main floor, while the rest are potential hostiles. Tenebrous narrowed down the power container's location through the Force, and he carefully snuck through the upper floors while disabling security cameras. After descending the stairs of eight floors, Tenebrous found himself inside a vast chamber that contained expensive paintings, jewelry and artifacts stored inside many display casings. He walked through the aisles of treasures until he came across a locked vault along the back wall. Tenebrous could sense the power container behind the vault door, and while approaching the vault he also sensed the presence of a sensor system monitoring it. Tenebrous halted before entering the system's detection radius, then he used the Force to disable the system altogether.

The Bith continued walking again until he stood a few meters away from the vault door. Tenebrous put a hand forward and used the Force to crush the thick vault door and tear it off its large steel hinges. He then tossed the hunk of metal aside and stepped inside the room that had nothing but the power container on a tall stand. As soon as Tenebrous laid eyes on the power device, he knew it wasn't the correct one he was looking for.

According to Bane's journal, the power of Great Red has a red hue and glows so bright that it's hard to look at directly, but the one in front of Tenebrous is light blue and not hard on the eyes. The Bith still wanted to check its atomic composition and energy signatures to make sure that it's truly not Great Red's power, so he put his hands on the device and peered his senses into the energy field within. He would have had a very hard time scanning it from a distance because the magical power is highly energetic and unstable, and even with his hands on the device it still took him some time to scan its atomic makeup. Just like its appearance, Tenebrous discovered that the magical power isn't that of Great Red according to the journal.

That doesn't mean it's useless though. Tenebrous believes that the device can help him or his allies in other ways, so he decided to take this unknown power with him. Clipping the box to the straps on his dorsal utility pack, the Bith walked out of the vault and strode across the chamber floor.

Tenebrous suddenly stopped when his Force senses told him that something is wrong. He expanded his awareness down to the lower levels and perceived the beginning of a battle on the main floor. A moment later, loud alarms went off throughout the entire building including the chamber Tenebrous was in. His task force was spotted…

The Bith can sense a few hundred people making their way to the chamber he was standing in. He was about to flee, but Tenebrous changed his mind. After all the time he has spent in the Underworld so far, he hadn't fought anyone yet, and Tenebrous was itching for a fight. He also saw this as an opportunity to learn about the combat prowess of mythological beings. Fallen angels entered the chamber through several doors along the walls, and some arrived at the balcony overhead. More soldiers piled inside while two notable individuals directed the company.

"Secure every square foot of this room, we cannot let the invaders reach our treasures!" Shemhazai shouted from the left door entrance.

Baraqiel had just arrived at the balcony when Shemhazai spoke. The fallen angel soldiers scanned the room between the display aisles and along the outer contour. The many aisles of treasures and fortunes blocked a lot of the view across the room, so they did not spot Tenebrous right away. But when they finally found him near the back wall, everyone halted and stared in disbelief.

Tenebrous calmly looked at the many bewildered faces, his eyes and alien appearance frightening everyone in the room. Nobody knew who he was exactly, but the sight of the Bith's lightsaber hilt and dark side eyes identified him as a Sith Lord. Soldiers that had their weapons drawn did not fire a single shot, and the soldiers who didn't simply stood there not knowing what to do. Shemhazai didn't know what to do either, and he looked up at Baraqiel in the distance for suggestions.

Baraqiel swallowed hard, then said loudly, "Open fire."

Many fallen angels exchanged concerned looks in response to the order.

A squad leader questioned the order. "But sir, what about the treasures?"

"Forget the treasures!" Baraqiel yelled. "Kill that Sith Lord!"

Just as Tenebrous activated his lightsaber, dozens of energy bolts from magic spears and tridents raced towards him in a sea of firepower. The energy bolts travel far slower than blaster bolts from Tenebrous's home galaxy, and not knowing this fact initially, Tenebrous almost overextended when deflecting the first bolt with his lightsaber. After deflecting the next group of bolts, his lightsaber sequences have adjusted to the slower speed and were now in perfect sync with the energy attacks.

Energy bolts were deflected at the ceiling, floor, walls and treasure casings while others were redirected back at fallen angels. Soldiers at the front were dropping dead one by one and casings exploded in spectacular waves of shattered glass and material. Tenebrous then moved to the opposite side of the room with such speed that he seemed to have instantly teleported. At his new spot, he continued to study their combat tendencies while casually deflecting more energy bolts.

With more soldiers falling to the ground dead, Shemhazai and Baraqiel decided to attack with their own magical powers. Shemhazai spawned several light spears from the left side of the room while Baraqiel prepared his holy lightning from the balcony. Tenebrous slapped away light spears with his lightsaber and dodged others, all while deflecting the continuous waves of energy bolts. Baraqiel sent a powerful bolt of holy lightning down at Tenebrous, but the Bith emerged at the opposite side of the room far away from the bolt. While Tenebrous deflected and dodged more energy bolts and light spears, Baraqiel unleashed another bolt of holy lightning that was absorbed in Tenebrous's left hand with the Force power of tutaminis. Tilting his hand to the side, Tenebrous released the stored holy lightning as two bolts that killed two soldiers to his left side.

Shemhazai took a moment to look at all the wounded and dead soldiers in the room that lost a lot of its valuable treasures, and he decided to change tactics and take matters into his own hands. After Tenebrous absorbed Baraqiel's next holy lightning bolt harmlessly on his lightsaber, Shemhazai charged forward while shooting a quick wave of light spears at the Bith. Tenebrous deflected and dodged the spears with contemptuous ease, and at that moment Shemhazai spawned a light sword in his hands for close quarters combat. At the same time, Tenebrous grew tired of toying with the fallen angels and now decided to end the battle quickly.

Unfortunately for Shemhazai, he mistook Tenebrous's passiveness as a lack of fighting ability, but little did he know that the Sith Lord was actually studying their combat competence and treating the whole fight as a mere training session. Shemhazai was enveloped in a storm of red Force lightning shot from Tenebrous's left hand, and the lightning's energy immediately lifted his body off the ground and slammed him into the wall overhead. Shemhazai's corpse landed in a heap with his bones seemingly turned to dust. The Vice Governor General was killed instantly on contact, and his smoking body alarmed everyone still alive in the room.

Many soldiers began to retreat while others tried to evacuate the wounded. Baraqiel remained still, traumatized by the abrupt and brutal death of his close friend. Tenebrous deactivated his lightsaber due to the absence of energy bolts being shot at him, then he turned and looked directly at Baraqiel standing near the balcony railing. The Bith took a few long strides, then jumped and soared through the air at Baraqiel.

The Cadre backed away several steps and watched Tenebrous land on the balcony with strong posture. Baraqiel charged up his holy lightning and shot a powerful bolt at the Sith Lord's torso. Tenebrous used tutaminis to casually absorb the lightning bolt and redirect it back at the fallen angel who wasn't expecting his own attack to be used against him. The bolt knocked Baraqiel on his back after striking him in the stomach; Baraqiel's lightning can kill a high-class devil or injure an ultimate-class devil in a single strike, so he felt a considerable amount of pain. The fallen angel gazed at Tenebrous with beads of sweat streaming down his face.

"You and I are going to have a quick discussion," Tenebrous said with a menacing look on his face.

_Lucifaad, Underworld_

Darth Plagueis peeked around the corner of an old brick apartment at the north end of Lucifaad. He waited for three city police officers to leave the front gates and check out for the night. Plagueis was getting ready to infiltrate the Lucifaad Congress Building where, according to gathered intel, a power container is stored. Just like Plagueis's previous mission where he found the power of Sephiroth Graal, he has no clue what magical power device is stored in the Congress Building. Once the three officers left their posts, Plagueis turned the corner and sped towards his target.

Lucifaad is arguably the Underworld's most unique city. It was the original devil capital ruled by the original Lucifer, and although Lilith is the current devil capital, Lucifaad is still the most sacred devil city. Its cultural and historical importance is so great that no clan can have any influence on it, unlike every other city that belongs to a clan territory. Even Lilith is influenced by the clan in which the current Lucifer came from before taking the Satan title. Since Lucifaad is free from the monarchial and aristocratic powers of the devil clans, the city is instead run by a mayor and a city council who are elected democratically.

After the Great War when Lilith became the new capital, the Four Great Satans at that time made Lucifaad the only democratic state in the Underworld, and mixed with its newfound autonomy, the city became the Underworld's version of Hong Kong. The mayor and city councillors have a lot of power over the affairs of their city and the Underworld since only the four Satans can override anything that goes on in Lucifaad. It is said that the mayor of Lucifaad is as powerful and influential as the head of the Bael clan.

Plagueis was now past the perimeter fence of the Lucifaad Congress Building, the place where the mayor and city councillors of Lucifaad come together for legislative meetings. Unlike Tenebrous, Plagueis did not request for a task force to accompany him on his missions because he believes he can accomplish more things on his own. That decision proved useful when he infiltrated the building through a large air vent without further ado.

Plagueis carefully crawled through the air vents inside the ceiling of the first floor. He did not travel anywhere specific though; ever since he arrived at the complex, Plagueis couldn't recognize any power devices through his Force senses. This concerned him a bit since he was able to feel the power of the Sephiroth Graal before he even entered the building it was stored in, but he never let it bother him. Plagueis knew that the powers inside each container have different properties and energy signatures, meaning that some may be harder to detect than others.

The Muun quietly removed the screen of a vent opening over two security guards who were working on the night shift, and after reorienting himself, Plagueis dropped to the floor feet first. He landed right in between both guards, and with awesome speed and precision, Plagueis snapped the spine of one guard with a chop to the back of the neck. Looking at the other guard, Plagueis twisted and unleashed a kick that caved in the man's chest and sent him flying down the hallway. The Sith Lord then grabbed both bodies and tossed them in a small storage room to avoid them being spotted in the open.

Plagueis continued down the hallway and turned right to ascend a flight of stairs. He was somewhat surprised at the lack of security forces inside this building, especially compared to the building that housed the Sephiroth Graal device which was crawling with armed guards. After climbing four floors, Plagueis opened the door and snuck down the new hallway. He briefly blended in with the shadows to avoid detection from three guards passing by, then he used Force speed to arrive at his intended destination a lot faster.

Plagueis now found himself inside the Congress Building's legislative auditorium, the building's largest room centered right in the heart of the complex. He expected the power device to be hidden in here somewhere, but he could not sense its presence. Plagueis then thoroughly scanned every floor of the building for the power container, but unfortunately he could not sense it anywhere.

"_A decoy,"_ Plagueis thought.

With the apparent significance of these power devices, Plagueis realized that some of the containers may be located somewhere else; false intel used to mislead anyone trying to find them. Another possibility is that the power device was recently moved to another location, and the intel he received from his agents was outdated.

Plagueis was about to leave when he received a premonition about the future only minutes from now: emergency alarms echoed through the building hallways and three groups of young devils searched for intruders inside the auditorium. Plagueis knows that he and his Master no longer need to hide from the world since they have an army at their disposal, and he wondered if Tenebrous decided to reveal himself to his enemies. Plagueis was interested in talking with the devils that will soon search the auditorium, and after deciding to stay and wait, Plagueis walked over to one of the seats in the third row and sat down in the darkness. The Muun could sense a person entering the storage room where he hid the two bodies, and a few moments later the emergency alarms went off.

[…]

Saji sighed while staring at the ceiling. "Dude, I'm so bored."

Issei said from the other end of the couch, "Why don't we play some cards?"

"Do you even know any card games?" Kiba chuckled.

Issei replied, "I've played a few games of blackjack before."

"Which means you probably suck ass," Saji joked.

Issei and his friends were relaxing in the guest lounge of one of Lucifaad's finest hotels. Merely hours ago, they had just finished another scouting run with the devil military, but Azazel took them away from the battalion for a two-day break. He realized that Issei, Rias, Sona and their peerages needed some rest like a lot of the overworked devil soldiers, so Azazel brought them to this hotel. Lucifaad is the closest major city to where the scouting missions are being run, so it was a quick trip for Issei and the others.

Azazel opened the doors of the guest lounge and walked while talking to someone on the magic comm.

"Azazel? I thought you were going back to the search area," said Rias.

The magic circle next to Azazel's ear disappeared. "I was just about to leave when I got a call from the police. Someone has broken into the Congress Building."

Sona mentioned, "If the police called you about a break-in, it must be pretty serious."

Azazel nodded. "Two security guards were brutally killed, and their bodies were found inside a storage room. The building's security team is searching for any suspects, but they haven't found anyone yet."

"Then let's help them!" Issei suggested.

"I was just about to ask you guys that," Azazel smiled. "I'm going over there myself, seeing how understaffed their security team is. And I can tell that you guys are itching for some action."

[…]

Plagueis calmly waited while the building's small security team searched for him. Eventually, the three groups of devils he envisioned opened the doors to the auditorium and walked into the black room.

"It's awfully dark in here," Xenovia pointed out.

"Keep your eyes and ears sharp," said Rias, "the intruder could be anywhere."

Issei, Rias, Sona and their peerages searched around cautiously from the small lighted area that was illuminated from the lights beyond the door entrance. They stepped a bit further into the room until they heard a voice coming from the shadows.

"Who are you expecting to find?" Plagueis called out from his seat.

Everyone halted and quickly turned in the direction of the voice.

"A murderous jerk," Saji answered. "Probably a devil separatist."

"The first remark is accurate, but the second one, not so much," said Plagueis.

Plagueis rose from his seat and walked into the light to reveal himself. Everyone froze in awe at the sight of the alien Sith Lord, each one of them observing his elongated head, dark side eyes and other Muun features. From fear and prior knowledge, each devil knew not to provoke the Sith Lord in any way, or else they may suffer from consequences that they may not be able to fight off.

"Y-You're a Sith Lord…" Tsubaki faltered.

"Yes," Plagueis stated. "I am Darth Plagueis, the most recent addition to the Banite lineage."

There was a brief moment of silence before the next person spoke. Nobody dared question his alien appearance.

"Why are you here?" Issei asked with a furrowed brow.

"That I will not answer," Plagueis replied.

"Then answer this," Akeno demanded. "Why are you destroying the Underworld?"

Plagueis thought about his ambient energy, then replied with a cruel smirk, "My Master and I thought about how appropriate it was for the dark side to be hiding on such a beautiful planet. We could suppress our powers, but we want the dark side to spread as far down as the planet's core."

"You monster!" Ingvild shouted.

"Am I a monster, or am I simply stronger than others?" Plagueis remarked. "Is it truly unjust for me to display my powers to the world when power is all that your society values? I've done a lot of research on your mythologies, especially this 'Underworld', and every bit of it fascinates me. For centuries, your kind fought and quarrelled for power to fulfill their dreams and desires, so much so that the sport of the millennium is the Rating Game. And as soon as someone oppresses your world with their power, just like your kind has done to the humans of Earth, you cower in fear and cling to your arrogance."

Plagueis paused to gaze at their stunned faces, then continued, "Your society does not understand the principles of power. When you obtain power, you must also have the strength to keep it. The weak will try to usurp your rule; an event that is currently unfolding. And from the looks of it, the strong will be ousted."

"There's more to life than power," Kiba argued back. "At least we're not corrupted like you Sith."

"So misguided," Plagueis mocked.

Plagueis could sense a magic circle form in one of the devils' hands. Rias had a hand hidden behind her back with a circle that was linked to the military forces that Azazel brought with him.

"If you think your soldiers will stop me, then so be it. Let them meet their fate," Plagueis declared. "I want you to return to your leaders and tell them how foolish they all are. Perhaps with time, they will learn the truth of the universe and see things the way they are. But for young ones like you to learn, time alone is not enough. To truly understand, you must be given a small taste of the dark side."

At Plagueis's last words, devil soldiers flooded through the entrance behind Issei and his friends. The Muun sprung forward with blinding speed and attacked the soldiers with his bare hands. He crushed the head of one soldier then plunged his fists through two torsos, turning around to smear the faces of Issei, Ingvild and Xenovia with his filthy hands. Plagueis then ripped off the arms of two soldiers and killed them with their own limbs, turning to smear the clothes of Saji, Ruruko and Tomoe with blood. Plagueis continued to smash skulls, tear off limbs, snap necks and plunge his fists through armored torsos, all while weaving his way through the three peerages to paint their bodies with his bloody hands.

Hardly any time had passed when Plagueis killed the last soldier and returned to his original spot in the room. Issei was drenched in the blood of the fallen soldiers, as was everyone else. Their faces were covered in splotches and marks and their clothes were ruined with stains and streaks. Few of them had barely moved during the attack; it happened so fast that it was all a blur of motion with no time to react. They all stood still and silent, traumatized beyond anything they experienced in the past.

Issei and his friends saw the gore and blood of battle several times before, many of them having suffered their own battlefield injuries as well. But what they never thought possible was for them to be drenched in someone else's blood and guts…to taste a person's blood in their mouths and smell it off their own skin. The killings alone were extremely brutal, and having bodily fluids turned on them were beyond the peerages' imagination. And the fact that it was the blood of allies made their anxiety ten times worse.

The set of doors at the opposite end of the chamber opened, then rushed in Azazel and four soldiers. The Governor General's face went pale when he saw his pupils soaked in blood.

"RUN!" Azazel shouted. "I'll hold him o-"

With a strong downward sweep of his hands, Plagueis brought down 80 meters worth of building on top of Azazel and the soldiers so fast that they couldn't perceive what had happened. The roof of the back half of the room had collapsed completely, and so much of the building came down that the outer parts around the auditorium started to creak and groan. The debris crushed the four soldiers to pulp, but it is not known whether Azazel is still alive or not.

"Azazel!" Issei cried.

Rias pulled on Issei's arm. "Issei, we have to go!"

"I'm not leaving Azazel behind!" Issei yelled back.

Plagueis used the Force to start piling slabs of stone and concrete in the form of a staircase. The gaping hole at the top of the building is very high up, and Plagueis admitted that nothing else short of a jetpack will get him out.

"Come on Issei, we need to leave!" Saji shouted.

Rias and Kiba pulled Issei back while military reinforcements stormed through the entrance behind them.

"All of you need to evacuate, now!" exclaimed the squad sergeant.

The three peerages ran out of the auditorium while the devil reinforcements closed in on Plagueis. The Sith Lord had just finished piling debris when the squads opened fire on him. Plagueis dodged energy bolts while leaping up the stages of the makeshift staircase, making his way higher through the ruined floors of the building. Once he reached the top, Plagueis jumped onto the exterior roof and ran in the direction of the city border.

He jumped from rooftop to rooftop across the streets of Lucifaad, doing so for kilometers until he reached the city's perimeter wall. Lucifaad always had a defense wall that surrounded the entire city, but it was heavily reinforced during the past few years. The ancient city is at the border of separatist-claimed territory and just inside loyalist territory, though it is still autonomous and only answers to the four Satans. The separatists have Lucifaad as a primary target because if they capture the city, loyalist morale would be severely crippled due to Lucifaad's cultural and economical significance. As such, Lucifaad's outer wall is constantly under fire from rebel forces.

Plagueis grinded to a halt on the roof of the last building before the perimeter wall. The space between him and the wall is huge, too far for him to make it in one jump. While analyzing his surroundings, perimeter forces spotted him on the roof, and they responded by sending four hovercraft his way. The vessels operated on magic and looked like miniature barges with a pilot controlling each one at the rear. A dozen devil soldiers were stationed at the front and middle part of each craft, and the soldiers of the closest vessel opened fire at the Sith Lord with their spear-like weapons. While deflecting energy bolts with his lightsaber, Plagueis made a hand gesture that brought the vessel into a dive, sending it crashing into the ground.

The next two magic craft opened fire, this time moving to Plagueis's flanks while ascending higher above his head. Before they were able to move to his sides, Plagueis reached out with his hands to send both craft hurtling towards each other, resulting in a mid-air collision that destroyed the vessels. The last vessel tried approaching the Sith Lord with quick changes in direction at an altitude below the rooftop. While the soldiers opened fire, Plagueis let the vessel get close enough to him so he can jump onto it at the right moment. Once it took a sharp turn to the right, Plagueis leaped into the air while firing a burst of blue Force lightning that decimated the pilot and the twelve soldiers. After landing in the center of the craft, Plagueis quickly moved to the helm to take control of the vessel. The hovercraft was badly damaged by his Force lightning, and its magical engine was on the verge of cutting out. Plagueis used whatever life was left in the engine to elevate him over the perimeter wall and fly him out of the city.

After flying for a few kilometers, the engine gave out. The vessel began to glide over the landscape, and it was losing altitude fast. A moment before impact, Plagueis jumped out of the vessel and used the Force to quickly slow his speed and hover a few feet above the ground. Setting himself down, Plagueis briefly looked back at the wreckage, then left the scene. He sped across the Underworld landscape as a ghostly dust devil in the direction of the _Mundane_.

_Asgardian search party, Underworld_

Elsewhere in the Underworld, a large Asgardian search platoon was looking for any signs of the Sith Lords. Odin had ordered them to enter the Underworld and begin searching.

"Send search teams 3 and 7 to Sector Delta," said the Asgardian captain. "We need to cover as much ground as possible."

"Yes sir!" replied the junior officer.

Once the young man left, the captain returned his gaze to the many Asgardian soldiers scattered across the plains. A few moments later, two unexpected visitors appeared out of magic circles.

"Need a hand, Captain?" said one of the visitors.

The Asgardian turned around and saw Shiva and Vishnu hovering a few meters above the ground. He marveled in awe at their glorious armor and felt happy to receive their aid.

"I sure do," the captain replied.


	7. High Alert

**High Alert**

Darth Plagueis had returned to the _Mundane _an hour ago empty-handed compared to his Master Darth Tenebrous. They were both in the process of analyzing the newly acquired power container that Tenebrous stole from Governor's Hall in the cargo hold of their starship. Plagueis took the time to study the power's atomic makeup while Tenebrous flipped through the pages of Darth Bane's journal.

"This seems to be the power of Absolute Demise," Tenebrous said while reading the journal.

"I see," Plagueis replied. "I wonder if we could get any use out of it."

Tenebrous put the book down. "That power device is useless to me, and I assume it is of little use to you as well. Perhaps it could benefit the members of the Order of Bane."

"How?" Plagueis questioned. "The power in this container is nothing but a ball of unstable energy."

Tenebrous pondered for a few moments, then said, "Further testing is required. We could take the device outside and remove the power from it with the Force. That way we can see if the energy is malleable enough to be used for other things."

Plagueis liked the idea. "Brilliant thinking."

Tenebrous and Plagueis walked out of the cargo hold and approached the ship's airlock. After the sealed door opened, they walked down the ventral ramp and stepped out into the frigid Underworld climate. They turned in a random direction and walked away from the _Mundane_.

"Where's Herman?" Plagueis asked.

"I sent him on an intel mission," Tenebrous replied. "He should be back soon."

Plagueis frowned slightly. "Hopefully he returns with valid intel."

The Sith Lords hiked across the landscape until they were over a kilometer away from the _Mundane_. They believe this distance is far enough to where the starship won't receive any damage in case things go wrong.

Tenebrous gazed at the luminous power device. "The energy seems to be reactive to cold temperatures."

Plagueis put the device down at their feet. When the container made contact with the snow, the energy inside brightened even more. Taking note of this, Tenebrous and Plagueis prepared to open the container and carefully release its contents into a strong Force bubble. Just as they peered their awareness into the energy field, their senses warned them of immediate danger. They opened their eyes to quickly study their environment, but their senses couldn't detect anyone or anything that's hostile.

"Strange…" Tenebrous muttered.

A moment later, magic circles spawned all around them. Hundreds of discs were up in the air and on the ground, all of which showed the emergence of soldiers wearing white and gold dress armor. An old man appeared out of a circle that floated higher than all the others.

"We have found you at last!" Odin shouted from high above.

The chief god of Asgard was with a thousand Valkyries—an all-female army of "half-gods" from the Norse mythology. The women were armed with magic melee weapons that ranged from swords and wands to spears and battle axes, and some of them had an array of magic circles ready for use.

"How did they find us?" Plagueis asked his Master.

Tenebrous strapped the power device to his dorsal utility pack, then used his incredible brain power to think about their situation at an unfathomable rate.

"I believe it has to do with the two beings trying to read our minds from the other side of the world," Tenebrous stated. "It's highly probable that they were using their telepathic abilities for other means."

"A brilliant tactic," Plagueis acknowledged, "but their success will be short-lived."

Plagueis reached out across the planet and racked the minds of the two beings with pain and confusion to diffuse the telepathic link. Shiva and Vishnu had used their telepathic powers for an alternative and unorthodox purpose. They knew that they wouldn't be able to read the Sith Lords' minds, and they found a way to turn that disadvantage into an advantage. Since there are only two minds in the world they cannot read, they used this "block" to narrow down the location of the unreadable minds which they had predicted to be the Sith.

Unaware of their true intentions, Tenebrous and Plagueis had dismissed the telepathic attempts as a mere annoyance, not thinking they were broadcasting themselves to telepathic abilities different from the Force. Shiva and Vishnu had notified their Asgardian allies about the Sith's location, and as a result, Asgard sent its best warriors to defeat the Sith Lords.

Tenebrous and Plagueis vowed not to make the same mistake again.

Tenebrous looked up at Odin and shouted, "What makes you think that your army will defeat us?"

"I'm not sure if they will defeat you," Odin admitted, "but it's certainly worth the try. After all you've put the Underworld through, you leave us with no choice but to eliminate you at all costs."

"It seems like you are acting out of desperation," Plagueis remarked. "Such despair will only bring you doom."

"Enough!" Odin yelled in frustration.

The god rambled on about how his army will cleanse their evil presence from the face of the planet, and with disinterest, Tenebrous turned away and spoke to Plagueis.

"I have a challenge for you, apprentice," said Tenebrous.

Plagueis raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

Tenebrous continued, "This will be a challenge of pure bladework where you and I will compete for the most kills. We are only allowed to use the Force powers of physical augmentation and saber throw, therefore we must use our speed, agility and lightsaber skills to their fullest. The winner gets to have the last piece of Jogan fruit."

Plagueis thought over the rules, then replied, "Deal. Let the best Sith win."

As soon as Odin finished his speech, the Valkyries let out a war cry in the name of Asgard. The Sith Lords activated their lightsabers and sped towards the closest of the thousand female warriors. With quick and powerful lightsaber strikes, Tenebrous and Plagueis tore through the first twenty soldiers like paper mache, each woman falling to the ground as a shattered corpse. Plagueis followed his Master along the side of the hill area that flanked most of the army, both of them leaving long, red lightsaber blurs that stretched across the whole area. Not able to properly perceive the Sith Lords themselves, the Valkyries fired long-range magic attacks at the streaks with the hopes of hitting the Sith as they ran. Easily escaping the long trail of destruction behind them, the Sith Lords separated at the tree fork, Tenebrous going left and Plagueis going right.

To all Asgardian onlookers, the Sith Lords' movements looked like red lightning flashing around the whole battlefield. Each Sith pushed their speed and agility to the max, which allowed them to weave around trees, leap across branches, and dance around in the open while killing their adversaries. They could feel the Valkyries' growing horror and disbelief; it was a wave of pain and fear that clouded the air like a thick fog. They continued to strike, deflect, dodge and run as the Asgardian numbers dwindled.

This battle bears more significance than one would suggest. As half-gods, Valkyries are the most powerful "frontline units" of any mythology. They are far stronger than the average devil or angel and they even outclass the average grim reaper. As such, Valkyries have been the bulwark of Asgard for centuries, and each mythology always took them as a serious threat. Only the strongest of female Asgardians can become Valkyries, while the strongest of male Asgardians aspired for godhood.

Odin stared with hyperactive eyes at the carnage below him. The Sith had killed half of his army by now, and the remaining half looked like they were all devastated. What made the situation that much more fearsome is that the Sith Lords decimated half the army barely within the span of minutes. Thoughts flashed through Odin's mind as he quickly pondered about his current options and whether he should intervene. Sadly, he felt that his magical powers would hardly make a difference.

But he couldn't do nothing either. Odin spawned his spear "Gungnir" and prepared to fly down and join the battle. Before he moved, the Chief-Valkyrie Brynhildr, escorted by two other Valkyries, flew up to Odin's altitude and floated in front of him.

"Lord Odin, I need you to depart immediately," said Brynhildr. "It's too dangerous for you to stay here."

"I'm joining the battle," Odin declined. "It's the right thing for me to do."

"No!" Brynhildr shouted. "We have all sworn to protect you at all costs. If you get killed down there, our training and oath were for nothing. Please let us fulfill our duty, I beg you."

Odin hesitated for a moment, then acknowledged her request.

"Okay," said Odin. "You have all made me very proud."

A large magic circle formed just beneath Odin's feet, and a second later it teleported him away from the battlefield. Brynhildr and her escorts rushed down to the forest below where the battle continued.

Plagueis rushed out into the open grass fields while Tenebrous began using saber throw to cut down Valkyries hovering in the air. After killing his next opponent, Plagueis picked up the magic sword that fell from the woman's hand and began using the dual-wield lightsaber form of Jar'Kai. The Muun swung both arms at a rapid pace to plunge his lightsaber and magic sword through magic shields and Valkyrie flesh, all while contorting his body like a pretzel to dodge magic attacks. He then used a strong burst of Force speed to speed blitz dozens of Valkyries with his blades before they could conjure magic circles designed to bombard Plagueis's location.

Plagueis then stopped to briefly observe his Master killing many airborne Valkyries with the use of saber throw. The Bith would take a moment to kill a woman or two on the ground between throws, all while using his speed and agility to dodge their attacks. Plagueis always knew that his Master is a tad faster than him, but he now realized that the Bith is actually less competent in the agility department than he originally thought. He studied Tenebrous's flips and acrobatics and noticed that the Bith can't perform several maneuvers to the extent that Plagueis can. The Muun also noticed that Tenebrous's lateral speed is also a little slower than his own, but the Bith's tremendous forward speed easily makes up for this deficiency. Plagueis couldn't decide which characteristic was better: his agility or his Master's running speed.

Plagueis turned and saw a floating Valkyrie gazing at him with a magic circle to her right side. He found it strange that the magic circle wasn't being used to attack him, and unlike the other Valkyries, this woman seemed to be studying him. Without another moment's hesitation, Plagueis threw his lightsaber at the Valkyrie, the blade decapitating her before she knew what happened. Once the lightsaber flew back into his right hand, Plagueis darted off to meet up with his Master at the center of the battlefield.

The two Sith Lords briefly exchanged words while observing the last 120 soldiers at the edge of the treeline. The Valkyries seemed tired, afraid and panicked, and it looked as though they were preparing to retreat. Tenebrous and Plagueis won't be granting the mercy of retreat, so they sped forward as fast as they could before the women could spawn teleportation circles.

Their blades clashed against magic circles and flesh as they dodged and weaved around magic attacks and defenses. Plagueis stabbed a wounded Valkyrie that was on the ground lying on her back with the magic sword in his left hand, and the blade struck through her with such force that it plunged into the large boulder under her back and snapped in half. The Muun threw away the broken weapon and returned to his single-bladed lightsaber sequences. Tenebrous and Plagueis continued to dominate their way through the army remnants until only one Valkyrie remained.

Brynhildr stared at her invincible adversaries with stressed eyes. Her breathing was heavy and her heart couldn't beat any faster, and all she could do was give everything she's got. As she charged forward, the Sith Lords surprisingly turned off their lightsabers and clipped the weapon hilts to their belts. She swung her magic sword at Plagueis who disappeared a moment before being struck, then he reappeared to her left side and punched her in the side of the ribs. Hurt and winded, Brynhildr turned and unleashed two furious slashes at Tenebrous who seemingly teleported to her right side and kicked her in the side of the knee. She fell to one knee for a moment, then she pushed herself back up and walked with a limp.

The Sith Lords were toying with her both physically and mentally. At this point, Brynhildr was just swinging her sword around wildly out of rage. Tenebrous grabbed her sword and disarmed her with such force that he nearly ripped off her fingers. Plagueis stepped forward and lifted the wounded Valkyrie by the back of the neck with a grip as strong as steel.

"This is an interesting weapon," said Tenebrous. "I think I'll keep it."

Brynhildr's sword is different from all the other swords Tenebrous saw. It has a short handle and lacks a cross guard, and the whole thing looks more like an oversized machete than a traditional longsword. The blade of the weapon also glows brighter than every other Valkyrie sword, suggesting that it has a greater amount of magical power. Tenebrous gripped the handle and immediately liked the feel of it in his hand. He waved the sword around and noticed that it has good balance and speed and is fairly lightweight, perfect for dual-wielding with another blade.

"What made you think that you and your sistren could defeat us?" Tenebrous asked.

Brynhildr remained silent. Whether she was too scared to speak or simply refused to reply, Tenebrous decided not to deal with her anymore. He motioned Plagueis to end her life.

Plagueis yanked Brynhildr's head down as hard as he could towards his elevating knee, and with great Force augmented strength, he kneed the back of her neck. The force of the blow pulverized her cervical vertebrae and deformed her durable flesh, killing her instantly. Brynhildr's body dropped to the ground like a discarded marionette.

Plagueis stared at the corpse of the strongest Valkyrie. "That was my five hundredth kill. We tied."

"A draw it is," Tenebrous acknowledged. "Excellent work, apprentice."

The Sith Lords walked back to their starship and decided to experiment with the power of Absolute Demise somewhere else. Once they returned to the _Mundane_, they shared two halves of the last piece of Jogan fruit.

_Asgardian search post, Underworld_

Odin rushed towards Shiva and Vishnu in the distance. Watching him run with a serious look of urgency, the two Trimurti gods approached Odin immediately.

"What happened?" Shiva asked.

Odin replied while panting, "The Sith…they slaughtered them. My Chief-Valkyrie urged me to leave…I don't think any of them are still alive."

"Were they able to do anything to the Sith?" Shiva questioned. "Injure them, perhaps?"

"Not in the slightest chance," Odin replied bluntly. "The battle was lost before it even began."

Vishnu grew angry. "I knew we should have sent in the Asuras along with them! This wouldn't have happened if we sent in our full numbers!"

"I really don't think the Asuras would have done much to help," said Odin. "I never imagined seeing so many powerful beings die so quickly in my life. It seemed like these Sith Lords could cut through every person in existence without faltering."

"Perhaps we need additional support…" Shiva's eyes narrowed in thought. "Let the Underworld leaders know about this incident, I have another plan in mind."

_Lilith, Underworld_

Sirzechs and the other Satans were assembled in the Satan Legislature Building in downtown Lilith. Sitting in their respective seats within the assembly hall, the Satans had gathered with representatives of the devil clans not involved in the civil war and witnesses of the Sith infiltrations. Sirzechs stood up and addressed everyone in the chamber.

"Thank you all for coming," said Sirzechs. "This meeting was created on short notice, but as you all know, we have an emergency that has escalated significantly. We must take every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of our people, therefore Ajuka, Falbium, Serafall and I have placed every Underworld city on lockdown under Code Red. I will now let our head of military affairs explain the current situation."

Sirzechs sat down while Falbium Asmodeus stood up and walked down to the presenter's stage in the middle of the room.

"As you all may or may not know, the Sith infiltrated and attacked two key buildings in the Underworld very recently, one in Lucifaad and one in Grigori," said Asmodeus. "Unfortunately, Shemhazai was killed during the attack on Grigori, and the Underworld has lost several brave devils and fallen angels as well."

Some of the clan representatives shifted uncomfortably in their seats at the sound of this new information. Baraqiel lowered his head in shame, reminded of the brutal death of his friend.

"Azazel was also seriously injured during the encounter in Lucifaad," Asmodeus continued. "He is currently recovering at the Serafall Memorial Hospital, thus he will not be attending the meeting tonight."

"Hold your tongue, Asmodeus," a voice shouted from the back end of the assembly hall.

Everyone turned their attention to the exit doors at the far end of the room. Azazel was sitting in a wheelchair with a medical assistant standing behind him holding on to the chair's rear handles.

"It's a pleasure to see you, Azazel," Sirzechs smiled. "The hospital staff must have done an excellent job healing you up."

"He's in good condition compared to his prior state," said the assistant, "but some of his injuries still require close monitoring. Our supply of Phoenix Tears was able to heal his fractured bones and other musculoskeletal injuries, but the potion was not able to repair his damaged organs. Azazel suffered severe trauma to his liver, right lung and right kidney, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that he fully recovers. The doctors advised that he keeps his movement and talking to a minimum, and with your permission, Lord Lucifer, I will speak on Azazel's behalf."

"Permission granted," said Sirzechs. "Please take a seat wherever you like."

The medical assistant rolled Azazel's wheelchair down the right side of the chamber where there's more room to maneuver. He parked Azazel right next to Zeoticus Gremory and took a seat at the Governor General's vacant side.

"I can't believe you showed up," Lord Gremory said quietly.

"I wasn't going to let myself miss such an important meeting," Azazel replied. He then grinned and said, "Plus I'm a lot tougher than I look."

"There's no doubt about that," Zeoticus replied, admired and slightly intimidated by the fallen angel's perseverance.

Asmodeus continued explaining the situation report. "We now have witnesses and evidence to fill in some details about these Sith Lords. Baraqiel gave a description of the Sith Master, which our investigations unit used to illustrate the suspect. The Sith Lord's name is Darth Tenebrous."

A person controlling the overhead projector placed a drawn image of Tenebrous onscreen. It wasn't an exact replica of Tenebrous, but it was still an accurate depiction of the Sith Lord. People looked at the image in disgust, frightened by the Sith's alien features. What the image lacked was his dark side corruption, and if that feature was added, everyone probably would have refused to look at it.

"We also have a drawn image of the apprentice Darth Plagueis," said Asmodeus. "A magic recording was sent to us by the Asgardians featuring the battle that took place between the Valkyries and the Sith Lords; the recording stops part way through the fight, so we do not know the details of the battle afterwards. However, the recording was able to get a solid shot of Plagueis."

The left side of the projector image showed the drawing of Plagueis described by Issei and his friends a few hours before the meeting. On the right side of the screen, a video played showing the Valkyrie battle starting from the very beginning of the fight. Streaks and swirls of red light dashed across the battlefield like lightning bolts, killing everything in its path. Neither Sith Lord could be perceived until Plagueis took a moment to watch the Valkyrie recording him with a magic circle. The video then paused and showed a still image of Plagueis in his Jar'Kai stance: his lightsaber in low guard below his hip and the magic sword in high guard above his head. The Muun's fiery yellow eyes looked directly at the center of the circle, almost as though he was purposely trying to stare down the viewers on the other side of the lens.

The whole assembly hall remained silent while everyone studied the crystal-clear shot of Plagueis. While not as alien-looking as Tenebrous, the Muun still baffled everyone with his elongated head, overly gaunt frame and long limbs. Whoever thought that Hades was the worst-looking humanoid immediately changed their minds when setting eyes on the live shot of Plagueis.

"Ugly bastard," mumbled Lord Belial.

Lady Phenex couldn't take her eyes off Plagueis; it almost as though the alien's awful appearance kept her stuck in a mesmerized state.

"Where is this 'Darth Plagueis' now, exactly?" asked Lord Agares.

"We don't know," Asmodeus replied. "Our search teams are working together with the Asgardians to track down Plagueis and his Master's current location, but no reports have returned yet."

A long moment of silence passed before anyone spoke.

"I believe it's time for us to reform the mythological coalition," said Ajuka. "We can't let these Sith Lords continue to destroy everything without heavy resistance holding them back."

Most people in the room wished he wouldn't have said that. It means there will be another global war.

"I agree," said Lady Sitri while standing up quickly. "I can't bear to see the world plunge further into darkness. I don't want my little Sona to suffer any further, especially after the trauma she just went through."

Lady Sitri looked up at her eldest daughter Serafall with a sad look on her face. Serafall almost started to cry.

Everyone else was still hesitant. After a few moments of thought, Azazel grew angry and slammed his fists on the table.

"I'm sick of this shit!" Azazel shouted. "Why are we sitting around not wanting to do anything?"

"Sir, please sit down!" exclaimed the medical assistant. "You need to take it easy."

"No!" Azazel yelled back. "I want to say this with my own voice and passion, even if it kills me."

The assistant backed off and sat down.

Azazel looked around at his surprised colleagues and said, "The world is on the brink of total destruction. We all swore an oath to protect our people and push back our enemies no matter the cost. I remember saying that on the day our Three Factions joined forces under the Kuoh Treaty, and I don't plan on breaking that promise now. Look at me, I got my ass annihilated and my best friend died, and I still have more fire and passion than all of you! Why are we letting fear hold us back?"

Azazel then looked up at Sirzechs and shouted, "Sirzechs Lucifer, the most powerful man in the Underworld and perhaps the most powerful Satan in history, why are you beating around the bush? You were eager to end the Sith threat when Bane and Zannah were here, why are you so hesitant now? Your sister and her friends could be dead right now if things turned out differently. Rias, Issei and the others will be dead if we don't go after the Sith with everything we have! So what's it going to be, Lord Lucifer?"

Sirzechs looked around at everyone then at his father and Ajuka, both of whom stared back at him in such a way as to test him. He returned his gaze back to Azazel and took a moment to think. Almost spontaneously, Sirzechs's eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed.

"Falbium, gather the mythologies. We're taking the fight to the Sith," said Sirzechs.

_Phenex Castle, Underworld_

Plagueis snuck through the main floor of the Phenex Castle searching for the clan's stash of Phoenix Tears. He could sense several magical items around the castle through the Force, but Plagueis didn't know which ones were the healing potions. As such, the Muun planned on searching each floor starting with the first one.

Plagueis infiltrated the Phenex Castle while Tenebrous did his own activities elsewhere. It was common for them to go off on their own tasks in the hopes of fulfilling their desires, so neither Sith Lord was overly suspicious of the other. However, Plagueis wondered if his Master has his own goals around the intricacies of mythological magic, and if he did, Plagueis wondered what. The chances of Tenebrous seeking out things like Phoenix Tears are low due to his evident disinterest in mythological texts, but there is still a small possibility. To prevent his Master from getting an edge over him, Plagueis intended on hiding the Phoenix Tears to the best of his ability, even if he must actively manipulate Tenebrous so the Bith won't find the potions.

Searching the rooms of the first floor, Plagueis scanned shelves, desks and drawers while avoiding and disabling security cameras. Failing to find anything, he reached the stairs and climbed up to the next floor. There were some devil guards on the second floor, so Plagueis conducted his search more carefully. Finding nothing on the second floor, Plagueis ascended the stairs while avoiding detection from security patrols.

Once he reached the third floor, Plagueis could immediately tell that there was something about the doors at the back end of the castle. Unlike the other room doors, these ones were twice the size and made from a denser material. Plagueis quietly approached the doors and hid behind a stone pillar when two people walked out. Once the two men were gone, Plagueis snuck up to the door that remained slightly open and heard someone shuffling some things around. The Sith Lord did not recognize this person through the Force, but from the looks of the man's clothing through the door crack, he seems to be a high-ranking official.

Plagueis carefully opened the door, walked in, and quietly closed the door behind him. He observed the room without hiding; all around he could see the many things required to make Phoenix Tears, and at the right end of the room was a meditation spot where the tears are extracted from members of the Phenex family. The man that Plagueis was approaching is Lord Phenex, and behind the clan leader Plagueis could see the several stacks of Phoenix Tears lined up on the lab table, some stored in sealed boxes and others exposed in the open.

Plagueis had an armored storage case with him that he carried in his left hand, one designed to house a variety of precious items. He put the case on a nearby table, making just enough noise for Lord Phenex to realize that someone is behind him. The devil turned around and expected to see a guard or a family member, but to his complete disbelief, he saw the face and body of an alien. Lord Phenex jolted and dropped the test tubes containing his newest batch of Phoenix Tears. After the glass and liquid shattered across the floor, Plagueis approached a few feet and spoke.

"Marvelous work you have here," Plagueis commended. "You and your clan have created something that not even the Sith have been able to invent."

Lord Phenex blinked rapidly. "Y-You're Darth Plagueis, a-aren't you?"

"I am," Plagueis confirmed. "Word seems to spread quickly in the Underworld."

"W-What do you want?" asked Lord Phenex.

"Take a look around you," said Plagueis. "What I desire is quite obvious."

Lord Phenex replied with hardly a moment's hesitation, "Take it. Take everything in here if you want."

Plagueis laughed. "You give up your prized possessions too easily."

"We can make more," said Lord Phenex. "Phoenix Tears are fairly common commodities, we sell them to buyers all the time. Some of our enemies have even gotten their hands on them somehow."

"I would be keeping the existence of these potions a secret, but I can understand why you would want to sell them," Plagueis stated.

Just as Plagueis was about to start filling up his case with Phoenix Tears, Lord Phenex interrupted by saying, "I have a request for you, Dark Lord. This is very important to me, and I'm willing to do anything for it."

Plagueis cocked an eyebrow. "You're willing to do _anything_?"

"Yes!" Lord Phenex nodded enthusiastically. "My daughter, she's deeply troubled. Ever since the weather changed, she's been depressed and heartbroken. Even when she's with Issei and the others, she's overwhelmed with misery and hopelessness. I…I found her diary…and it contains suicidal thoughts. All I ask is for you to clear the skies so she can see the sunshine again."

Plagueis simply stared with a blank expression on his face.

Lord Phenex became desperate. "I-I can give you all the fame and fortune you want! My clan is very resourceful, and we have great relations with powerful people; we can give you everything! I can even modify the Phoenix Tears so that it will make you unstoppable! It may take me years to be able to make such changes to them, but I will spend every waking hour of the day to fulfill that goal. Please, Lord Plagueis, I don't want to lose my little girl!"

Plagueis extended his arm. "Take my hand and pledge your loyalty to me."

Lord Phenex rushed towards the Muun and grasped his hand in a prayer-like pose.

"What can I do for you, milord?" Lord Phenex asked.

Plagueis gave a menacing smile. "Die."

Clenching his hand tight around those of Lord Phenex, Plagueis shot a stream of Force lightning into the devil's body. Lord Phenex went stiff and his eyes rolled back while his blood was brought to a boil. The devil's superb healing abilities would have saved him from all damage to his limbs, but the lightning cooked his blood and organs; something that his regeneration abilities cannot account for. Also, Plagueis's lightning damaged Lord Phenex faster than he can heal.

The devil's corpse fell to the ground in a heap, having been fried inside and out. Plagueis decided to kill Lord Phenex because he had the most amount of knowledge around the creation and operation of Phoenix Tears, and with his death, further fabrication of Phoenix Tears will be lessened. Plagueis doesn't know if the tears will help him significantly in his quest for corporal immortality, but if they do, he doesn't want anyone else to have them. The mere fact that the other Phenex clan family members likely know how to create the potion made Plagueis jealous, but the Muun didn't want to go on a witch hunt.

Plagueis stuffed his armored case full of Phoenix Tear bottles, and once there were dozens inside, he locked the case and held it in his hand. The Muun briefly studied the dead body on the ground with a mocking gaze. The devil was deluded to think that his knowledge and effort could help Plagueis in any sort of way, especially when magical power cannot do anything in relation to the Force.

"_Fool_," Plagueis thought as he walked out the door.


	8. World War

**World War**

Shiva walked towards the entrance of the massive tower in front of him. Lined up along the sides of the walkway Shiva strode down were countless soldiers dressed in white and silver ceremonial uniforms. The soldiers had benevolent auras and were similar in appearance to the endangered angels that once lived in Heaven, but they were of course a different mythological race. Multiple sets of eyes gazed at Shiva and his glorious exoskeleton-like armor, mystified by the divine plating that shined like polished gold. The soldiers nodded with warm smiles as the world's strongest god passed by.

Shiva was in the mysterious realm of ExE. Known to only a select few individuals from the other realms, ExE is a world divided into two halves: one benevolent and one malevolent. The benevolent territory is ruled by the god Resetoras; the place where Shiva is right now. The soldiers along the walkway are sentients known as the Spirits, divine creatures who answer to Resetoras and spread the teachings of peace and harmony. Ahead of Shiva is the huge Tranquility Tower: the administrative center of the territory and Resetoras's home.

The other half of ExE is the malevolent territory ruled by three evil gods. The first god is Melvazoa, the de facto leader of a hostile and aggressive race of machines called the "Mechanical Life Forms". His older brother, Regalzerva, is the supreme commander of the mechanoid military and acts as the faction's second-in-command when Melvazoa is not around. The third god is Melvazoa's younger sister Seraselbes, the minister of infrastructure and production who acts as Melvazoa's messenger and advisor. Together, the three siblings govern the malevolent territory half a realm away from where Shiva is standing right now.

The Hindu god entered the Tranquility Tower at the welcome center where more Spirits were there to greet him. The priest-like people escorted him to the nearest main elevator that will take him up to Resetoras's throne room. Shiva stood inside the elevator with ten Spirits, waiting patiently as they ascended higher and higher up the tower. A short time later, the elevator doors opened, revealing the throne room at the end of the wide hallway. The group walked down the hall until they reached the arching threshold that led to the room's main chamber. At this point, the ten Spirits turned around and walked back to the elevator, leaving Shiva to enter the chamber himself.

Sitting on the grand throne at the back of the central chamber was Resetoras. Dressed in a divine white gown with silver and gold symbols, Resetoras looked a lot like a high priest with a huge crown on his head. The god stood up and walked down the throne steps to meet with Shiva.

Shiva bowed and said, "It is an honor to meet with you again, mighty Resetoras."

"There's no need for formal pleasantries," said Resetoras. "In fact, I should be the one bowing to you. Since the last time we met, you have grown vastly in power, so much so that you have well surpassed my abilities. You and your Hindu brothers are quite the fascinating gods, I must say."

Shiva's over-the-top armor and trishula, the things that greatly amplified his natural power, also put Resetoras's outfit to shame.

"We have put a lot of work into our new equipment, and we plan on using them wisely," Shiva spoke. "Will Melvazoa and his siblings show up?"

"I can't say for certain," Resetoras mentioned. "This is the first time there has ever been a ceasefire between our two territories. Most people from their land think that the treaty is some sort of trap or scheme on our part, so I wouldn't be surprised if they refused to attend this meeting."

Shiva and Resetoras waited around for a little while before the elevator doors down the opposite hallway opened. Many people walked down the hall, and it took a moment for Shiva to spot the three malevolent gods among the crowd. Melvazoa and his two siblings were in the center of a large escort group of Spirits that closely monitored their every move. The Spirit guards were clearly uncomfortable being in the presence of the most powerful of their sworn enemies; their strong and alert stances showed their willingness to intervene any attack. The three malevolent gods, on the other hand, were as calm and arrogant as ever.

"You should give your guards a break, Resetoras," Regalzerva mocked. "Tense bodies make for poor quality meat."

"Shut your mouth," said Melvazoa. "We're not here to tease each other with useless banter."

Regalzerva stared at his younger brother with a frown, then reluctantly obeyed his order with a brief shake of his head.

Melvazoa looked over at Resetoras and said, "I apologize for my brother's childish behavior, I'll make sure my sister doesn't do the same."

Seraselbes crossed her arms in disapproval. Although Melvazoa and Resetoras have been enemies for a very long time, Melvazoa always had great respect for the benevolent god, unlike his siblings who would find every opportunity to insult him.

"Apology accepted," Resetoras acknowledged. "Please take a seat wherever you like."

The three gods circled around the base of the massive throne and approached the long guest table stocked with expensive leather chairs. Just as they took their seats, they were finally able to see Shiva standing at the far end of the throne.

"The leader of the Hindus," Seraselbes pointed out. She had been studying Shiva for some time, and she recently heard the newest gossip about his magic enhancements. "Much of your power is fake, but respectable nonetheless."

"I would have preferred to have developed it naturally, but that would have been an impossible task," said Shiva while looking down at his own armor. "This artificial method was the best option available."

Shiva studied the three gods surrounded by numerous guards behind the chairs. From his current knowledge and understanding, Resetoras, Melvazoa, Regalzerva and Seraselbes have equal amounts of magical power, not one of them superior or inferior to the other. That being said, each one has fighting strength that surpasses those of Ophis and Great Red, making all four of them very dangerous opponents. Shiva would be noticeably weaker than them naturally, but with his armor and upgraded trident, he is in fact twice as powerful as any of them individually. If a fight broke out right now, Shiva can fight any two of them by himself to a stalemate.

Shiva also noticed why Melvazoa is the leader of the malevolent ExE faction despite being the middle sibling. Unlike his brother and sister who appear to be arrogant and impulsive, Melvazoa is rational, perceptive and collected to such an extent that he seems robotic and calculative. As the leader of the Mechanical Life Forms, Melvazoa is part machine himself, with nearly fifty percent of his body covered in mechanical parts. Shiva speculated that this might be the reason for his cold and heartless demeanor, but Melvazoa might have always been that way.

Resetoras introduced the purpose of the meeting. "At the request of Shiva, we have gathered here today to discuss the crucial series of events happening in the other realms of the world. There is a great danger that could affect our realm if we do not take the necessary precautions. Shiva will explain the situation in further detail."

Shiva walked forward and stood in the center of the circular floor between the leaders of each ExE faction.

"This series of events is similar to a major conflict that happened five years ago mainly in the Underworld," Shiva recalled, looking at the malevolent gods. "Have any of you ever heard of the Sith?"

"Yes," Regalzerva replied with a smirk. "I remember the rumors about Darth Bane and his apprentice. Very powerful and deadly; they would have made such good allies."

"I have heard about the current Sith Lords as well, though I don't know their names," Seraselbes said soon after. "Intel suggests that they turned the Underworld into a frozen and destructive wasteland. How fitting of a fate for the pathetic devils."

Shiva elaborated, "Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis have done unprecedented amounts of damage to the global environment of the Underworld. Countless people have perished and many more are isolated and afraid."

"Those are interesting details, but we do not care about the Underworld and its inhabitants," Melvazoa said bluntly. "By the tone and choice of your words, you seem to be suggesting that we do something about these Sith Lords."

Shiva nodded. "Tenebrous and Plagueis are severe threats to every mythology and realm in existence. I fear they may be after an artifact that could destroy us all and change the course of history forever."

Resetoras interrupted before Shiva can continue explaining. "What is this artifact?"

"The power of Great Red," Shiva revealed.

Regalzerva and Seraselbes began to laugh almost uncontrollably. Even Melvazoa, who is usually emotionless, expressed an amused grin.

"The power of that foolish old dragon is the main threat?" Seraselbes giggled. "You do know that each one of us is more powerful than Great Red."

"I do," Shiva replied. "It's not the sheer destructive force of his power that I'm worried about, it's the nature and function of its capabilities. Great Red's power can turn a person's dreams into reality, and Darths Bane and Zannah had developed a way to use that power to create anything at will. One thing they created was a portal to another galaxy, which may or may not have been in another universe."

The malevolent gods lost their humorous moods and adopted serious demeanors.

Shiva continued, "Although they needed external sources of power to assist them, Bane and Zannah created something completely unprecedented. These new Sith Lords are vastly more powerful than their predecessors; I have felt their auras in my visions. If they get their hands on Great Red's power, god knows what they can create."

Resetoras gulped at the sound of those details. "Could their use of Great Red's power affect our realm?"

"It certainly could," Shiva confirmed. "In fact, every realm could be at great risk if they chose to use its power to that extent. I believe they can even create something that could affect the whole universe."

"That's ludicrous!" Regalzerva shouted. "Nothing in this world can affect the entire universe! If that was the case, somebody would have already done the deed by now."

"I'm not fully certain if they can alter the universe with the power container, but I wouldn't risk thinking otherwise," said Shiva.

Melvazoa looked around the room with calculating eyes, his mind pondering and reaching conclusions.

"As powerful as the Sith successors are, I wouldn't question if they could amplify Great Red's power to destroy everything this reality has to hold…or worse…recreate the universe in their own image," Shiva predicted.

Melvazoa stood up and said, "I have come to an agreement with Shiva's statements. Darth Tenebrous and Darth Plagueis cannot be allowed to obtain the power of Great Red."

Regalzerva was floored. With his arrogance clouding his judgement, Regalzerva immediately questioned his brother.

"You can't be serious!" Regalzerva shouted. "Let the other realms die, why should they matter to us? Besides, how do you know if this man isn't lying?"

"Bane and Zannah had to have gotten home somehow," Melvazoa replied. "Their powers were proof enough that they were from somewhere else in the universe, nothing in this world can replicate their abilities. The creation of a portal linked to another universal fabric is highly probable, and if these new Sith are as powerful as they are said to be, the creation of something far greater is quite likely."

"You have a point," said Seraselbes, "but you seem to be trusting Shiva's words too much. How do we even know if the Sith are that powerful in the first place?"

"Because I fought Bane once," Melvazoa admitted. "I lost…badly."

Each god in the room was shocked. Even Shiva was surprised to hear this confession.

"When did you fight Bane?" Resetoras asked from the top of his throne.

Melvazoa explained, "Five years ago, I secretly scouted the Underworld out of my own self-interest and curiosity. I made sure that no one knew I was in that realm, not even my siblings. When exploring a forest in the Underworld's northern hemisphere, I spotted Bane and immediately noticed that there was something different about him. I could tell that he held great power like no other. I revealed myself and challenged him to a fight."

Melvazoa paused, then continued, "That was a decision that I regret making. I was able to push him back a few times, but he was too fast and ferocious for me to keep up." Melvazoa opened his uniform to reveal the many scars across his torso and arms. "I was injured from several superheated lacerations and lightning strikes, and I was able to escape before Bane could damage me anymore."

After that fight, Bane had chosen to forget about the confrontation and instead focus on his goals at the time. It is not known if Bane wrote about the fight in one of his journals or if he told someone about it, and that question will likely never be answered. The only other person who might have known about the fight is his long-dead apprentice Zannah.

Regalzerva and Seraselbes stared at Melvazoa's battle scars for several seconds. They couldn't imagine anyone being able to damage one of them so much, given how utterly powerful they are. The two gods then looked at each other with uncertain eyes. Their pride wanted them to cling to their arrogance, but deep down they knew they had to put their egos aside.

"What would you like for us to do, Shiva?" Seraselbes asked in an agreeable tone.

_Lilith, Underworld_

Falbium Asmodeus approached Lord Bael from behind and tapped him on the shoulder.

Lord Bael jolted and quickly turned around. "I would appreciate if you could refrain from sneaking up on me, milord."

"I apologize," said Asmodeus. "Is the poison ready?"

"It sure is," replied Lord Bael. "It matches the looks and taste of the wine perfectly. To my knowledge, he shouldn't be able to detect it."

The lord that Asmodeus is talking to is the younger brother of the original Lord Bael and the uncle of Sairaorg Bael. After the original Lord Bael died at the hands of Darth Bane in the Agreas Stadium, his brother ascended to the rank of clan leader and married the widowed Lady Bael. For the past five years, the current Lord Bael spent most of his time trying to expand his clan's influence while dealing with the rebels in the civil war.

"Perfect," said Asmodeus. "Let's get in our positions. Tenebrous will be here any moment."

Falbium Asmodeus and Lord Bael walked to their seats of the grand hall's humongous dining table. The table was T-shaped and decorated with the most fabulous ornaments, and on top it held the best quality snacks the Underworld had to offer. At the left end of the "T" stood Asmodeus, while Serafall Leviathan stood at the table's right apex. Lord Bael and several other lords/ladies were positioned at the chairs that sketched the table's perimeter all around. After waiting a few minutes, the doors leading to the main hallway opened, revealing Darth Tenebrous.

The Bith calmly walked into the room while four devil guards escorted him from behind. Each person was taken aback by his alien features, this time being able to see his foreign face for real rather than looking at a drawing of him. Tenebrous's lidless eyes scanned the entire room top to bottom, observing the intricate designs and details of the remarkable dining room of Lilith's grand gathering hall. His gaze returned to the people standing at their seats in front of him.

"Welcome, Darth Tenebrous," Lord Bael greeted. "It is a great honor to finally meet an all-powerful Sith Lord."

"As it should," Tenebrous replied. "The dark side is quite the marvel."

"There is no question about that," Lord Bael acknowledged uncomfortably. "Our servants will show you to your seat. There is much to discuss."

Two devil servants showed Tenebrous to his seat while the four guards behind him walked off to join the rest of the soldiers in the room.

[…]

"So you're willing to show me the location of Great Red's power and give me the blueprints to your latest technology?" Tenebrous inquired.

"That's right," said Serafall. "We know you're dying to return home, and we want to make the search as easy as possible for you."

"Splendid," Tenebrous smiled under his respirator. "Your generosity and perception please me."

At the ring of a bell, dinner was finally ready. Multiple chefs and waiters entered the room with loads of turkey, beef, breads, vegetables and pastries: enough to feed everyone two times over. While servants served the food on the guests' plates, other waiters filled every dinner class with the highest quality red wine. As soon as the wine hit his glass, Tenebrous knew right away there was something up with his drink.

He could sense some sort of toxic agent mixed in with the red wine, and he knew before he even entered the building that they were going to try to harm him in some way. Tenebrous wasn't surprised at all, for he was there to sabotage them as well when the right moment arrives. The Bith planned on massacring most of the people in the room, most notably the devil lords and ladies, while leaving some witnesses alive to spread the rumors of the horrible act. But before he starts to kill, he wanted to draw as much information out of their minds as possible with the hopes of narrowing down the location of Great Red's power.

Reading everyone's mind throughout the negotiation, Tenebrous discovered that nobody in the room actually knew where Great Red's power container was located. Frustrated, he played along with their phony promises and planned his next course of action.

Asmodeus tapped his wine glass with a spoon to get everyone's attention as he prepared to give a toast. At this moment, Tenebrous could have disclosed to everyone that he knew that there's poison in his drink, but he wanted to do something more brazen instead. With the Force, Tenebrous can cleanse poisons and toxins from his body, and with this power, he wanted to show everyone that poison has no effect on him. This is a way to demoralize them even more by showing how pathetic their schemes and hopes are. The survivors of his attack will carry on the message of his invincibility, shattering the wills of everyone in the Underworld to the point where they might utterly submit to him and Plagueis.

Half-way through Asmodeus's speech, Tenebrous removed the outer mask of his respirator to reveal his mouth underneath. Most guests couldn't help but stare uncomfortably at the oxygen tubes entering the sides of Tenebrous's alien mouth despite their attempts to focus on Asmodeus's dinner toast. After the Satan's final words, everyone raised their glasses and took a sip of wine. Tenebrous swished the wine around in his mouth once then swallowed it without any concern.

The Sith Lord proceeded to take his first mouthful of delicious food. Recalling all the information he knows on poisons, Tenebrous knew that practically every poison takes a little while to kick in, so he used this time peer his awareness into his own body and sense the propagation of the substance. He had complete confidence in his ability to ward off the poison while enjoying his scrumptious meal.

But something awful happened…

Tenebrous had just began to study the poison in his body while taking his third mouthful of food when an overwhelming pain shot through his torso. He hunched forward and knocked over his wine glass.

"Lord Tenebrous, are you alright?" Lord Bael faked his concern.

Tenebrous fell to the floor in enormous pain. His mind raced in a frenzied panic; one part of his consciousness tried to rapidly study the invasive poison while the other tried to detoxify his body using the Force.

"_Impossible! How can this be happening?!_" Tenebrous's thoughts screamed in his head.

The Bith realized that this poison is spreading at an astronomical rate, immensely faster than any other poison Tenebrous knows about. In fact, the sheer potency of this poison is dozens of times stronger than any other toxic agent from his home galaxy. He knows this because years ago during his Sith apprenticeship, Tenebrous had to detoxify his body from the galaxy's deadliest poison as a test for his Master. Tenebrous began to crawl away from the dining table in agony while trying to save himself from the terrifying toxin.

The poison killing Tenebrous is Samael's curse.

_Gamigin Castle, Underworld_

Darth Plagueis walked with several hooded figures through the streets of the town surrounding the Gamigin Castle. Plagueis had a black cloak on over his regular outfit with the large hood raised over his long head, making him blend in with the gray- and navy-cloaked soldiers from the Order of Bane. He could hear the sound of battle not too far away; scouts reported that devil separatists are attacking the central castle and have gained a slight advantage over the loyalists in the area. Plagueis and his hooded escorts are making their way to the battlefield right now.

Plagueis, like his Master in Lilith, is here to kill important figureheads in order crush the morale of anyone who stands against him and Tenebrous. The executions of these leaders are of high importance now because a global war has already started. At the order of Sirzechs Lucifer, Falbium Asmodeus had convinced many mythologies to unite and attack the newly revealed Order of Bane with the hopes of finding the Sith Lords and ending their reign of terror.

The war had just started the day before, so whatever battles took place so far are relatively minor in scale. Tenebrous and Plagueis tried to use this to their advantage by sabotaging the mythological leadership before the battles become too large and time-consuming and while the locations of the leaders are still known. Plagueis was also here to sway the devil separatists to their side since he plans on using them to reinforce the battalions of the Order of Bane. The rebels are inspired by the Sith, but they are currently acting as an independent faction that's less fanatical about the Sith than Cao Cao and his members. Plagueis isn't too worried though because he believes that a single, up-close act of dominance will encourage the rebels to join and support his cause.

Plagueis and his soldiers turned left onto one of the main roads that led directly to the Gamigin Castle. This pathway has been sealed off at all other intersections and is occupied by the loyalists protecting the Gamigin property. The men around Plagueis changed formation: several of them took stealth positions along the building walls and rooftops while some remained at the Muun's sides as he boldly walked towards the back end of the loyalist blockade. Several hooded figures shot and stabbed at devil loyalists from their hidden positions, assassinating them with great efficiency. Others began leaping down from the rooftops to land on their devil enemies with deadly strikes of their bladed weapons. With several loyalist squads at the back dead, it was only now that the rest of the blockade realized the presence of the mysterious figures behind them.

The west Gamigin blockade forces divided their attention into two: the front half focusing on the rebels ahead and the new back half turning around to face the unknown hostiles behind them. Energy bolts flew everywhere as the blockade desperately tried to hold off enemies from both sides. Plagueis walked with his hands clasped together at his waist completely unfazed, even when some stray energy bolts came within a few feet from striking him. He kept his focused gaze forward while his soldiers did all the dirty work for him.

By now, the right section of the loyalist blockade had fallen. The few surviving soldiers ran to the left section to avoid being cut down by the cloaked assassins closing in on them. Some of the devil separatists were finally able to get a clear view on the mysterious people that flanked the blockade, and a couple of soldiers expressed deep concern, not knowing whether the newcomers will attack them as well. A squad of rebels raised their weapons and prepared to shoot at the assassins.

"Hold your fire!" exclaimed the squad leader. "I think they're friendly."

The rebels lowered their weapons as two cloaked figures separated from the main attack group to check the bodies for survivors. One man slayed two badly injured soldiers while the other walked by the rebel squad with a magic sword in his right hand. The hood of the assassin's navy cloak obscured most of his face with a shadow, and with a soft motion of his arm he brought his index finger to his mouth, telling the rebels to be quiet. He then motioned for the rebels to follow him and the rest of the cult members.

Further up ahead, Plagueis watched the loyalist survivors retreat to regroup with the east Gamigin blockade not too far down the next intersection. He lowered the hood of his black cloak and revealed his alien identity to everyone in sight. The rebels who saw Plagueis were initially shocked and frightened by his appearance, but they felt a little more at ease when they saw his fiery Sith eyes. It was something relatable to the appearances of Darth Bane and Darth Zannah, so they figured that Plagueis is a dark sider. But some of them were still unsure. One rebel was brave enough to approach the Muun and start a conversation with him.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you a Sith Lord?" the soldier asked.

"Yes," the Muun replied. "I am Darth Plagueis."

The man's eyes widened from the confirmation of his prediction. "What is your bidding, Lord Plagueis?"

"Tell the other rebels to follow my soldiers towards the east blockade. I have my own plan of action," Plagueis ordered.

"Yes sir," said the rebel.

The devil left to relay the information to his comrades. Taking one last look around the environment, Plagueis sprung forward and ran in the direction of the Gamigin Castle. He became a ghostly apparition that weaved around soldiers and obstacles and dodged magic attacks as he made his way through the area of the east blockade. He broke through the blockade unscathed and ran through the castle's courtyard, then he made his way up the front steps to smash through the front doors. Plagueis then quickly searched the castle for his target.

Only moments had gone by when the Muun ran back outside with a person in his grasp. He ended his use of Force speed in the middle of the east blockade battlefield where he can be clearly seen by everyone. The battle action quickly grinded to a halt when people on both sides saw the horrified face of Lord Gamigin in Plagueis's grip. The Sith Lord held the clan leader by the throat with a Force-augmented clutch that acted like a steel claw that turned the devil's face bright red. When the whole area had grown silent, Plagueis ignited his lightsaber and put the tip of his blade into the devil's chest, cutting through his thorax in a circular pattern. The Muun then plunged his fist into the man's chest cavity and ripped out his heart. The organ continued to beat in his hand as he tossed the body to the ground.

Plagueis raised the heart above his head to show off his victory. The rebels and cult members cheered in a sudden roar that obliterated the remainder of the loyalists' fighting spirit. Having lost the will to continue fighting, the Gamigin soldiers laid down their weapons in surrender since they utterly failed to protect Lord Gamigin.

Moments after ordering his troops to arrest the loyalists, Plagueis felt a disturbance in the Force that racked his head with pain. He held his head in his hand as his senses warned him of something horrible that happened.

"Milord, are you alright?" one of his cult members asked.

"Something is wrong," said Plagueis. "I need a teleportation field to Lilith. Now!"

_Lilith, Underworld_

A powerful wind swirled around the huge dining room with Tenebrous at its epicenter. Dinner plates, chairs and decorations flew around to damage the walls and smash into people as whirling debris. Lord Bael tried his hardest to approach the dying Sith Lord, but the churning cyclone threatened to lift him off his feet and sweep up everyone else. It wasn't too long until the hurricane-force winds died down and dissipated, Tenebrous having grown too weak to sustain his telekinetic cyclone.

Lord Bael and a few other lords carefully approached the poisoned Bith, wary that he will unleash his powers once more. They closely watched him with alert eyes; Tenebrous laid in a supine position and he breathed with a raspy voice that made him seem beyond ill. Tenebrous was able to remove half of Samael's poison from his blood with the Force, but his body had become so exhausted that he stopped crawling himself away from his enemies, too weak to move a muscle. The remainder of the poison continued to infect his organs and degrade his blood, giving him incredible pain.

Tenebrous was about to expel his maxi-chlorians and consciousness into the nearest person to save his essence, but before committing the irreversible act, he saw with his blurry vision someone moving across the ceiling. He recognized the person as Plagueis, who crawled along the ceiling of the room like an insect latched onto a flat surface. Rejoiced to see his apprentice here to help him, Tenebrous focused his efforts on purging the poison from his body while he fell in and out of consciousness.

"We finally brought the Sith to their knees," said Lord Bael. "No more will they be a threat to our world."

"You forgot about the apprentice," a voice called out from above.

Plagueis dropped to the floor and landed between Lord Bael and his Master with his hood down over his shoulders. The Muun immediately sped forward and grabbed Lord Bael by the face while putting himself down on one knee. He blinded his opponent by shoving his thumb into the lord's eye, then he raised his right hand to shoot Force lightning at three devil lords off to the side. The storm of blue lightning turned them to charred corpses and launched them back with such momentum that their bodies cracked the wall behind them. Plagueis's right hand then seemingly turned to stone as he used his Force-augmented strength to slash at Lord Bael's throat with his extended fingers. The ends of his fingers slit through the lord's durable flesh with an awful ripping sound, creating a deep gash that broke blood vessels and severed the devil's trachea.

Plagueis then charged towards an approaching guard with a clenched fist that drove through the soldier's armored torso, leaving his sleeve drenched in blood. The Muun then turned to crush the skull of another guard nearby while setting his eyes on the stunned lords close to the dinner table. Some of the male and female clan leaders had magic circles ready for use while the rest were too startled to react to what had happened.

Plagueis conjured a Force wave that he confined to the center of the dining room so he wouldn't harm Tenebrous further off to the side. He made the wave as potent with the Force as possible and swept it towards the closest six devil lords. The mass of telekinetic energy ripped through the dining table and magic shields to atomize the six devils. Plagueis then turned and redirected the wave to atomize six more devil lords off to his right. The dining table, magic circles and twelve lords had all been reduced to molecular particles.

Falbium Asmodeus and Serafall Leviathan had already run up the back stairs towards the overhanging balcony when Plagueis spawned his Force wave, the devil guards having urged them to evacuate. The two Satans exited the room through the balcony door when many soldiers rushed in from the same threshold to open fire on Plagueis. The Muun levitated hundreds of pieces of debris and broken objects off the floor and sent them hurtling toward the devil guards as deadly projectiles. The objects struck multiple guards like rapid machine gun fire, tearing their bodies apart in a bloody mess. The remaining soldiers began shooting energy bolts from their spear-like weapons.

Plagueis used the Force to slow and redirect the bolts back at the guards, moving his hands around as though he was trying to cast a spell. Bolts shot from one soldier would change direction and hit a different soldier somewhere else along the balcony or on the stairs. The Muun continued to alter the courses of energy bolts until every soldier in the room was dead.

With no more enemies left for him to face, Plagueis immediately turned his attention toward Tenebrous. He certainly wanted to chase down the two Satans, but he must attend to his dying Master first. Plagueis rushed over to the motionless Bith and got down on his knees next to Tenebrous's side. He immediately sensed the Bith's body for any signs of injury, and he was alarmed at the amount of internal damage Tenebrous's body had sustained. Plagueis began purging the rest of the poison from his Master's body with the hopes of revitalizing the Bith from the brink of death. Once Samael's curse was gone from Tenebrous's body, the Sith Master regained consciousness and began coughing up blood.

"Master, can you hear me?" Plagueis asked.

"P...Pla…Plagueis…" Tenebrous mumbled.

Tenebrous is too weak to speak. Plagueis was relieved to see his Master regain some level of consciousness, but he knew that Tenebrous is still in critical condition from the extensive internal damage caused by the poison. If Tenebrous doesn't get any medical attention soon, he will die.

"Hang in there, Tenebrous," said Plagueis. "I'm getting you back to the _Mundane_."

_Starship 'Mundane', Underworld_

Herman watched Plagueis carry his Master to the ship's medical bay with utmost urgency. Behind the Muun, Leonardo hustled with a small rectangular case in his hands and entered the medbay. Concerned, Herman walked quickly down the aisle and passed through the medbay's automatic sliding doors. He gazed at the motionless and very pale Bith on the medical table.

"Is he…dead?" Herman asked anxiously.

"No," Plagueis answered, "but he will be if we don't heal him in time."

Leonardo opened the case to reveal eight bottles of Phoenix Tears packaged inside.

"Do you want to use these?" Leonardo asked.

"Yes," said Plagueis. "Bacta injections won't heal him in time."

Leonardo took a syringe off the tool tray and stuck the needle into a potion bottle to suck up a batch of healing liquid.

"Inject it into his carotid artery," Plagueis ordered.

Leonardo carefully inserted the needle into Tenebrous's neck and pushed the fluid into his bloodstream. A moment later, the Bith's skin turned to a healthier skin tone as the Phoenix Tears rapidly healed his limbs and superficial flesh layers. The injection healed Tenebrous's skin and muscles, but it couldn't account for the horrific damage to his organs deeper down.

"His organs and blood vessels are still severely damaged," Plagueis notified as he scanned Tenebrous's body with his senses. "Inject another load of Phoenix Tears."

"Milord, Phoenix Tears can't heal damaged organs," Leonardo said sadly.

"I know," Plagueis spoke. "I'm going to try to alter its properties so it can accomplish that."

Leonardo injected another batch of Phoenix Tears into the Bith's neck. Plagueis peered the entirety of his awareness into Tenebrous's body and studied the healing potion at an atomic level.

Samael's curse-like poison did immense damage to Tenebrous's insides; his liver and lungs were on the brink of shutting down completely, his heart spasmed with an irregular beat and his digestive organs began to fail. The organ that took the least amount of damage was his brain—which Tenebrous likely focused most of his efforts on saving when he was at the dinner party. Samael's curse is so powerful that it can greatly weaken the most durable beings like Ophis and Great Red and permanently absorb a vast amount of their magical power. If Tenebrous hadn't done anything right away to reduce the effects of the poison, he would have died on the spot.

Falbium Asmodeus and Lord Bael had traveled to the depths of Cocytus to find the sealed fallen angel/dragon hybrid Samael. When they found the imprisoned man, they extracted some of his blood (which contains his curse-like poison) and masked it in the red wine they would give to Tenebrous at the dinner meeting. Plagueis wondered who and what poisoned his Master, but those questions need to be set aside for now.

Plagueis continued studying the makeup of the Phoenix Tears while making slight changes to certain subatomic particles. He had only studied his own crate of Phoenix Tears for a short time before he went off on his mission to the Gamigin territory, so Plagueis had to do a lot of learning on the spot. The Muun was glad that he didn't have to use up any of his own Phoenix Tears (which he hid in Cao Cao's base), allowing him to reduce any suspicions with Tenebrous if the Bith woke up at any point.

Feeling confident enough to make larger changes to the potion's chemical makeup, Plagueis altered more subatomic and atomic matter within the healing fluid to repurpose it to heal Tenebrous's organs and blood vessels. Plagueis sensed that, bit by bit, Tenebrous's internal injuries slowly started to heal.

[…]

Hours had gone by before Plagueis was able to fully heal his Master. It was a grueling process for the Muun; every bit of his focus and awareness was spent on altering the atomic makeup of the Phoenix Tears. Plagueis had to be very precise with every part of the potion within Tenebrous's body, for if he made a slight alteration mistake with the potion's atoms, he could have quickly turned the healing fluid into a malignant toxin. Plagueis also went through five full bottles of Leonardo's stash of Phoenix Tears, showing how much work and potion was needed to properly heal the Bith's organs and blood vessels.

Herman had fallen asleep in his seat halfway through the medical procedure. When he awoke, Tenebrous had just regained consciousness and Plagueis was scanning his Master's body one last time to make sure he didn't miss any damaged tissue. Leonardo nudged Herman's shoulder and told him that it was time to leave the room. The human and devil walked out of the room just as Tenebrous spoke for the first time since the incident.

"I was a fool," Tenebrous told his apprentice. "I never knew their poisons were so powerful."

"I didn't know either," Plagueis commented. "Despite their vastly inferior technology, a handful of their equipment seem to be superior to those found in our home galaxy."

Despite the large amount of time Plagueis spent reading the mythological texts, he never once came across any section explaining a poison potent enough to bring down an alert Sith Lord with such speed and aggression. All the knowledge around Samael is forbidden to the general population, only the Satans and highest-ranked devil lords know about the creature's existence.

"Yes, I realize that now," Tenebrous acknowledged.

The Bith pulled himself up with the hopes that his body will feel okay, but his muscles trembled in weakness and exhaustion. He also felt light-headed and nauseous when he moved his head around. Plagueis placed his hands on Tenebrous's shoulders and gently guided his body back down to a supine position on the medical table.

"Take it easy. Your body has gone through a lost of stress," Plagueis reminded. "It may take days before you return to full strength."

Plagueis got up and began walking towards the door.

"Thank you, apprentice," said Tenebrous.

Plagueis halted and turned towards the Bith.

"I always had my doubts about you, that you would let me die when an unfortunate event arises. But I guess I was wrong," expressed Tenebrous.

Plagueis was somewhat stunned. This is the first time Tenebrous genuinely thanked him for his actions.

"Rest easy, Master," Plagueis responded.

Plagueis watched as the Bith rested his head and quickly fell asleep. Tenebrous must have felt extremely tired, seeing that it's abnormal for a Bith to fall into deep, unconscious sleep during resting periods. Plagueis walked toward the door with slow strides, and once he arrived at the threshold, something in him felt different. He stopped as he heard ghostly whispers in his head, feeling the dark side grow in him. Plagueis figured it was his own thoughts, but he realized it was as though the universe itself was speaking to him. In fact, it was the dark side of the Force itself whispering to him.

_He is asleep…..unsuspecting….._

Plagueis turned his head back toward his Master with a cruel and menacing expression on his face. His yellow eyes seemed to glow twice as bright as the raw, animalistic energy of the dark side urged him to lash out against his sleeping Master. Despite his instincts urging him to act, Plagueis followed his logic and reasoning instead.

"_No, that wouldn't be a good idea,_" Plagueis thought as he calmed down. "_Not yet…_"

The sliding doors sealed close behind Plagueis as he walked to the ship's cockpit.


	9. Duel of the Myths

**Duel of the Myths**

Two and a half weeks have passed since Tenebrous was poisoned. The ongoing global war has escalated into a ravaging conflict filled with destructive battles and massive mobilizations of armies. The Order of Bane and their new devil separatist allies fought against several armies of Asgardians, Greeks and devil loyalists using hit-and-run tactics, quick skirmishes and stealth to wear down their enemies. The Sith Lords' army is larger and more powerful than the one assembled by Bane and Zannah years ago, so Tenebrous and Plagueis are able to send their followers into more direct confrontations and conduct more full-scale assaults. However, their Sith followers are still horrendously outnumbered, so subterfuge and guerrilla warfare remain as the favored tactics to fight against the mythological armies.

Right now in the middle of a large deployment base, Balberith and Verrine are making their final preparations in their plan to assault Prull, the devil separatist capital. The two super devils looked out at their huge army of 50,000 artificial devils at the center of the military base in the Realm of the Dead. The army is divided into platoons of one thousand troops; each soldier stood at attention waiting for further orders. This is only half of the artificial devil army, the other 50,000 are back at Hades's castle.

Balberith and Verrine turned around at the sound of footsteps approaching from behind them. Thanatos, the strongest and oldest grim reaper, halted two meters away from the super devils and straightened his stance.

"My battalion is ready," said Thanatos. "Have you completed your preparations?"

Balberith stared out at the five thousand grim reapers standing at attention far behind Thanatos. "Yes. We should contact Hades and update him on the army's status."

Thanatos spawned a magic circle on the ground between the three of them that illustrated the figure of the Greek god of hell.

"What is it, Thanatos?" Hades asked.

"The army is set and ready for assault," Thanatos answered.

"Good," said Hades. "You and your battalion will depart immediately. The devils, on the other hand, will postpone their attack until dawn."

Verrine nearly lost it. "Another delay? This is the second time you postponed the attack!"

"I understand your frustration," Hades acknowledged. "Pluto and his men encountered more separatist reinforcements outside the city perimeter. The rebels are extra determined to defend their capital, but fear not, Pluto and his soldiers will soon have Prull's magic dome disabled and you will have a clear path to destroy all the soldiers and infrastructure inside."

"I still don't get it," Verrine shook her head. "Look at the size and power of our army! Let our men deal with the reinforcements; we can destroy the dome and the city several times over with the members we've got."

"Patience, my child," Hades advised. "We cannot be reckless with our main forces. Look what happened to the Asgardians a few days ago."

Three days ago, the second infantry division of Asgard defeated a large Order of Bane platoon in battle and had the survivors on the run. Determined to hunt down and kill the survivors, the Asgardians pursued them and stubbornly walked into an ambush set up by the Sith followers. Most of the Asgardian legion was destroyed and the commander was executed despite them vastly outnumbering their enemies.

"Fine," Verrine sighed.

The holographic image showed a grim reaper walking up to Hades and whispering something to him.

"I must attend to other matters," Hades announced. "In the meantime, relay this information to your devil troops. I assure you that victory will soon be ours."

The magic circle dissipated just after Hades's silhouette vanished. Thanatos immediately walked back to his battalion as instructed despite being the rebellious type who is constantly at odds with Hades. Moments later, Thanatos and the five thousand grim reapers teleported elsewhere to conduct their mission.

As the two super devils walked down the slope toward their army, Balberith placed his hand on Verrine's shoulder.

"Don't worry Verrine, everything is going to work out just fine," he said to her. "I promise."

_Kolasi Research Facility, Realm of the Dead (Underworld)_

Darth Tenebrous peered through his advanced binoculars and observed the research facility in the distance.

"There are six magic generators powering the defense dome," said Tenebrous. "Two on the central spire and one at each substructure."

He handed the binoculars to Darth Plagueis so the Muun can take a look for himself. Plagueis increased the sight magnification until he had a clear image of the facility and its components. The four substructure buildings stood in a cross or "+" shaped formation around the central tower, all oriented perfectly with north, south, east and west. The center spire towered over everything else in sight and its unique design brought an eerie feel to the land; it had a gothic and hellish architecture with high-tech glass panels and doors to create a sort of modern/medieval hybrid design. Plagueis then zoomed out slightly to observe the magic dome field that protected the facility from every conceivable angle.

Plagueis asked Georg, "How many shield generators do we need to shut down?"

Georg and every member of the Hero Faction laid prone in the dirt while the Sith Lords observed the research complex.

"At least three," Georg replied. "The secondary generators power separate quarters of the dome in the directions they are facing, while the center reactors distribute their energy across the field's entire 360 degrees. We will need to deactivate both spire generators and one at a substructure."

Understanding Georg's explanation, Tenebrous and Plagueis ordered the Hero Faction members to move up toward the facility with them. The members of the Sith task force ran across the Realm of the Dead's barren hills while using the stones along the ridges to conceal their advance. They continued across the inhospitable land until they reached a trench in the landscape just a few hundred meters away from the facility's magic barrier.

Tenebrous and Plagueis peeked over the dirt ridge and observed the facility one last time. They and the Hero Faction are here to infiltrate the research complex and retrieve Great Red's power container. Their spies and intel agents were able to narrow down the location of the device to this facility out in the middle of Hades's treacherous lands, and without another moment's hesitation, the Sith Lords gathered a team of the Order of Bane's strongest members to escort them in their mission.

Tenebrous and Plagueis can sense an energy source of immense power deep within the bowels of the complex, one much stronger than the other magic devices they found on their previous missions. This indicated that it's likely to be Great Red's power, but they can't know for certain until they get up close to it. They prayed to god that their intel isn't faulty.

"Looks like we will need to blast our way through the barrier," said Plagueis.

"Yes," Tenebrous agreed. "I just so happen to have the perfect tool for that."

The Bith reached for his belt and unclipped a comlink. He put the device up to his mouth and said, "Commence your attack run now."

Plagueis raised an eyebrow in confusion, not knowing who Tenebrous was contacting. A roaring engine sound became audible as the _Mundane _deactivated its stealth system and materialized into view in the distance.

Plagueis blinked in disbelief. "Who's flying the _Mundane_?"

"Brexan and Herman," Tenebrous replied gleefully. "Turned out that the fallen angel used to be a flight instructor on Earth before committing to the Order of Bane."

Plagueis was so puzzled that his left eyelid started to twitch. Ever since he was young, Plagueis always saw Tenebrous treat and handle the _Mundane _like it was his precious child, a sacred thing that no one else but Plagueis can touch. Tenebrous was even worried at times when Plagueis used the starship for his missions over the years, nervous that his apprentice would bring some sort of harm to the ship. Seeing Tenebrous allow random beings to fly his ship utterly boggled Plagueis's mind.

"This wasn't part of the plan," Plagueis expressed.

"A last-minute decision," Tenebrous replied. "I realized that we may need to utilize every available asset for our mission. Who knows what could happen."

Plagueis cocked his head slightly. "You taught them how to fly the ship?"

"Only the basic controls," said Tenebrous. "The _Mundane's _automated systems will be doing most of the work. I disabled the hyperdrive and enabled the collision avoidance system as part of precautionary measures."

Plagueis now understood the Bith's rationale, but it doesn't fit with Tenebrous's personality and past behaviors. It is likely that Plagueis is now seeing a side of Tenebrous that he never knew existed, one more pragmatic than the Bith's usual idealism and perfectionism, seeing that Tenebrous may be more desperate to get back to their home galaxy. Plagueis also wondered if this behavioral quirk is caused by some brain damage that he forgot to repair, but Plagueis was certain that he fully healed his Master and that no amount of Samael's poison remained.

The _Mundane _swooped down and opened fire on the magic defense dome from high above. The ship's two large laser cannons pelted the dome's outer layer with several rounds of laser bolts fired rapidly after the other. Once the outer layer failed, the laser cannons then bombarded the stronger inner layer powered by the central spire generators. Three proton torpedoes launched from under the _Mundane's _nose and hurled toward the dome along with the constant barrage of laser bolts. The torpedo impacts created three large explosions that finally killed the inner dome layer and left the facility open to ground invasion.

Cao Cao watched Tenebrous and Plagueis burst forward with dazzling speed. "Move up! Cover their six!"

The Hero Faction followed Cao Cao as he tried to catch up with the Sith. As the _Mundane _returned into stealth mode, the research facility went into red alert while the failed magic shields began to slowly recharge. Three quarters of the outer shield layer remained active, looking like a cut pie as the other secondary generators were spared from the starship's attack. Security personnel hustled out of the buildings to engage the blurs of red light that had already killed the few squads of armed guards outside. The Hero Faction arrived and saw Tenebrous and Plagueis cutting down the security forces with disdainful ease, and seeing that the Sith Lords seem to have all of their enemies' attention, Cao Cao ordered his members to find the shield generators as to not waste any time.

Plagueis halted next to his Master in the center of the complex after killing the rather undermanned security complement. They both looked at the central tower that likely gives access to the subterranean levels deep below the complex.

"Remain here with the others," Tenebrous ordered. "I will retrieve the power device."

"Are you sure?" Plagueis questioned. "We don't know who or what lurks in the lower levels."

"And we don't know what sort of reinforcements will arrive," Tenebrous replied. "I predict that the guards had enough time to alert outside forces about our attack, therefore we will likely be fighting on two fronts."

Plagueis quickly thought over that possibility and came to agree with his Master. "I see your point."

"Take this," Tenebrous handed over his comlink. "I will need you to give orders to the _Mundane_ since the communication frequency works best on the surface."

"As you say," said Plagueis.

Tenebrous hustled toward the central building while Plagueis left to regroup with the Hero Faction.

_Military Staging Area, Realm of the Dead (Underworld)_

Elsewhere in the Realm of the Dead, Balberith and Verrine assessed their platoons while rechecking their preparations to make the time go by faster. Everything seemed normal until they received an unexpected call from Hades.

Balberith looked at the figure of his boss projecting from the magic circle. "Hades, I thought you were only supposed to call us at dawn."

"There's been a major change in plans," Hades said with a stressed tone. "The Kolasi Research Facility was overrun by Sith forces. The Sith Lords themselves were also spotted at the complex. Send your army to the facility, there you will regroup with devil division two and coordinate a counterattack."

Balberith and Verrine glanced at each other briefly with worried looks. Their current army of 50,000 devils was division one, division two is the other half of the full devil army.

"The entire army?" Verrine shook her head. "Sir, your castle will be left—"

"Don't worry about me!" Hades cut her off. "We need to destroy those Sith Lords at all costs! I would be sending in more forces with you, but the grim reaper battalions are already in battle. It is up to you to reclaim the facility and secure Great Red's power container. The fate of the world depends on it!"

_Kolasi Research Facility, Realm of the Dead (Underworld)_

Plagueis observed the barren hills around the facility scanning for any signs of reinforcements.

"So we basically wait here until Tenebrous returns with the device?" Georg asked.

"That is correct," Plagueis answered.

Plagueis had ordered the Hero Faction to destroy the nearest secondary generator and both primary generators so it would leave them with a way to exit the complex without having to blast through the shields again. Tenebrous had only entered the central building a few minutes ago when the first platoons of Hades's devil army arrived kilometers away. Plagueis can sense a few thousand souls not overly far away, then as the moments went by, more and more platoons teleported in.

Jeanne noticed the Muun staring out in a specific direction. "Are there any enemies?"

The Sith Lord nodded.

"How many?" asked Leonardo.

"Thousands," Plagueis replied. "Tens of thousands."

More platoons teleported in until all 100,000 artificial devils where at the scene. Plagueis sensed that they remained still for a bit until the front portion of the army mobilized toward the complex.

"The enemies have pushed some of their army forward," Plagueis warned. "I'm predicting twenty thousand."

"Shit…" Heracles mumbled.

There was nothing subtle about the forward charge. In the distance, thousands of artificial devils ran full tilt toward the complex with a quarter of the advancing force flying above the ground with their bat wings. Cao Cao was very worried; he and his human allies had never fought an army this large before…nothing came remotely close. And unbeknown to them, the average artificial devil from this army is as powerful as a typical high-class devil.

"Weapons hot!" Cao Cao shouted.

Each member of the Hero Faction spawned their Sacred Gears and other weapons and adopted fighting stances. Plagueis was the last one to draw his weapon, feeling much more confident than his subordinates as the mass of soldiers rushed toward them. Once the first few squads made it past the open gap in the magic dome, Plagueis sprinted forward with enhanced speed before either side fired their first shot.

[…]

Tenebrous sensed the presence of tens of thousands of troops on the surface as he descended down to the next subterranean level. He was deep underground within the facility section that housed many privatized labs and secret testing chambers, making his way closer to the site of Great Red's power device. Tenebrous was much more impressed with the underground security personnel since the guards consisted of Greek gods and demigods who tried to assassinate him around every corner.

The Greek mythology was the only faction that had the ability to send god- and demigod-class beings en masse to wear down the Sith Lords and their escorts. Their preparations over the past five years differed from the other mythologies, having geared toward making a larger team of god and sub-god beings that gave them a numerical advantage without the drawbacks of cannon fodder. At the request of Hades, Apollon agreed to send classes of his newest gods and demigods to serve as guardians for the underground site surrounding the apparent vault housing Great Red's device. They thought that the addition of these gods would be enough to fend off both Sith Lords (and perhaps a few of their escorts), but Tenebrous's unstoppable rampage falsified their prediction.

The Bith dissected the abdomen of a Greek demigod with his lightsaber as he set his eyes on two more enemies across the room. The two newbie gods twitched in fear as Tenebrous dropped the corpse of his victim, the latest kill among the other five demigods who were dismembered or beaten beyond recognition. The Sith Lord brought his lightsaber to bear at the rapid-firing energy attack emitted from the female god's magic circles, deflecting each projectile with perfect clarity and technique. The male god charged up a powerful attack of his own, but before he could unleash it at his enemy, Tenebrous put a hand forward and locked his body in a bubble of telekinesis.

Clenching and pulling his hand down fast, Tenebrous crushed the god's body like a tin can. The female god stared wide-eyed at the spontaneously imploded corpse, never imagining that such a brutal and graphic death was possible. The sudden shock caused the woman to lose focus on her redirected attacks, which, now with a weakened defense, allowed a magic bolt to hit her in the side of the head. Tenebrous then turned to the dazed woman and threw his lightsaber at her torso. The blade spun and flew at ferocious speed to impale her through the chest, adding on to Tenebrous's impressive killstreak.

This is the third full room he had slaughtered, not counting the Greek deities he killed in the connecting hallways. Tenebrous entered what seemed to be the last hallway that led directly to the central chamber, noting that it is much longer than the previous corridors. As expected, the four remaining warriors, two gods and two demigods, emerged from their hiding spots in a desperate attempt to stop Tenebrous. The Bith speedblitzed the demigods as an imperceivable blur that left a long arching streak of red light. He then held his hand forward and unleashed a strong storm of Force lightning that instantly traced its way toward the two gods. The red lightning forks were momentarily halted by several layers of magic circles, but after melting their way through the barriers, they struck the gods and cooked them badly. Their bodies dropped to the floor looking as though they had been baking in an oven for over an hour.

Tenebrous continued down the hallway toward his destination. He noticed that the metal ceiling began to gradually increase in height on a slope that would accommodate the height of a giant set of doors in the distance. Within the last few hundred feet, the surroundings changed from a plain and practical layout to a more high-tech appearance, displaying that whatever is ahead must be of high importance. Tenebrous was less than a hundred feet away when the huge fifteen-meter-tall doors opened and revealed the humongous chamber inside. A huge power core of unknown design stretched from the floor to the ceiling far above, and mounted in its center was a device that emitted a blinding red light so luminous that it was like staring at the Sun.

After briefly staring at his prize, Tenebrous switched his focus to the nine people standing at the door frame only a few dozen meters away. He had sensed their presence ever since he and Plagueis arrived at the facility; unknown beings with incredible life essences that far surpassed every other mythological person. Among them were a man wearing a heavy set of battle armor, a half-machine male and a little girl.

The man wearing ridiculous amounts of shiny armor stepped forward and said, "Your journey ends here, Dark Lord. I suggest you turn back now before you put your life in danger."

"Such bold words for a non-Force user," Tenebrous sneered. "You must be one of the chief gods of Hinduism."

From the general information he recalled reading in the mythological texts, Tenebrous recognized the man as Shiva. Behind the God of Destruction stood the other great Hindu gods Vishnu, Brahma and Indra, and to the sides stood Resetoras, Melvazoa, Regalzerva and Seraselbes. Ophis floated a few feet above their heads in a cross-legged pose.

Shiva nodded. "My brothers and I swore to protect the world from global threats that could harm us all. We will not let you take another step toward the power device."

"What makes you think you can stand against a Sith Lord such as myself?" Tenebrous asked.

"We have fought against Darth Bane before, and we have learned a lot since," replied Vishnu. "We anticipated the return of the Sith and made the necessary preparations to fight you off once more."

Tenebrous shook his head. "You have learned nothing. You don't even know what you are up against."

The Bith strode back and forth in a taunting manner. "Bane created a lineage based on strength where the apprentice must surpass the master, with the goal of making the succeeding generation more powerful than the last. This process went on for the past thousand years!"

The gods raised their eyebrows in suspicion.

"That's complete bullshit!" Regalzerva shouted. "Only five years have passed!"

"I know it's hard to believe, but that fact is true," Tenebrous assured. "Why don't you ask the young shapeshifter?"

Everyone looked at Ophis who had now descended to the floor. She studied Tenebrous with amazement and worry, feeling his malevolent aura that overlapped with Plagueis's own up on the surface. For some strange reason, she is the only one who can actually sense the dark side auras of Sith Lords, perhaps it being due to her being born in the bewildering Dimensional Gap. Tenebrous knew that she could feel his power, and although she rarely shows emotion, Ophis seemed to be frightened by the alien.

"I think he's right…" Ophis said with a shiver.

The other gods glanced at each other with very concerned looks. Melvazoa stepped forward next to Shiva and stood his ground despite the chilling truth about the Sith Lord before them.

"I don't care how powerful you are, Tenebrous," Melvazoa growled. "You will not walk away with Great Red's power container."

Tenebrous's head bobbed a few times as he accepted their defiance and unwillingness to surrender. Each alien hand then reached for two weapons on his body: his lightsaber hilt and the sword in his sheath. The sword strapped to his back under his cape was Brynhildr's sword, but its new features made it seem as though the weapon never belonged to the Valkyrie. After recovering from Samael's curse, Tenebrous used Sith alchemy to purge Brynhildr's sword of Norse magic and turn it into a dark side weapon. The sword is now entirely black with all Asgardian symbols removed, and the blade emitted a purple aura of dark side energy around its surface. Tenebrous calls his creation the Dark Sword, notably by the fact that its black blade is as destructive and durable as the blade of his lightsaber. Although Tenebrous does not possess the innate gift of Sith sorcery (and feeling that Bith science is far more potent), he is competent enough with sorcery to alter items and living beings.

Tenebrous brought the Dark Sword and his activated lightsaber to his sides. "It is a shame that Darth Gravid sabotaged the Sith teachings centuries ago, for if he remained true to the dark side, my apprentice and I would likely be more powerful than we are now. With such power, I would erase all of you from existence with a mere thought, but the setback in the Banite lineage gave me a different purpose…"

The gods spawned their weapons and magic circles.

Tenebrous spun his blades and crossed them in front of his face. "…to humiliate you all in a duel!"

The Bith charged forward and slammed his blades into Shiva's magic barriers before he or any of the other gods could attack Tenebrous from long range. The Sith Lord's main dueling style is a personalized hybrid of Form VII (Juyo) and Form IV (Ataru), utilizing the strengths of both forms to create an aggressive and unpredictable fighting style that retained solid defense and fluid acrobatics. Tenebrous spun and weaved around to simultaneously attack their magic shields and deflect a barrage of counterattacks, appearing as a swirling blur that pushed the nine gods back at a rapid pace.

He was much faster than anyone had anticipated, significantly quicker than Darth Bane in fact. Despite Shiva's armor enhancements which boosted his natural speed and reaction time a lot more than Ophis's past blessings, he still perceived Tenebrous as a chaotic tornado of blades that pushed him back with no room for counterattack. Tenebrous's vastly superior speed over Bane's is like comparing a human and a cheetah in a foot race.

Tenebrous began flipping over their heads side to side using aerial Jar'Kai techniques to slice through magic shields. The Bith's approach to combat isn't brutish and overpowering like Bane's, instead it was speed, cunning and technique that kept the gods in a backpedal. He continued slashing, blocking and leaping around like an imp to push everyone closer to the center of the massive chamber. Tenebrous then locked blades with Shiva's trishula and Melvazoa's wrist blades, creating a small firework of interlocking energy while the other gods regrouped further back. Tenebrous overpowered the two opponents and brushed their blades aside, giving him time and space to thrust both hands forward in a summoning of telekinetic power. The nine gods were violently tossed backwards as the wave smashed them into the floor and surrounding obstacles.

Tenebrous Force jumped onto a tall mechanism near the power core and watched the recovered gods charge toward him.

"This is the most fun I've had in decades!" Tenebrous laughed.

[…]

On the surface, Plagueis cut down another squad of devils while the Hero Faction rained down suppressive fire. The Muun did most of the killing so far, the others had a hard enough time fighting a handful of devils each while sparing the occasional moment to support Plagueis. Georg has been quite useful thus far with his Dimension Lost Longinus, using its balance breaker to trap hundreds of devils in a pocket space on the battlefield, but he can't teleport any of them away for some strange reason. He can sense some sort of magical alteration in the devils, possibly done by Hades, that protects them from certain magics like those found in Georg's Dimension Lost. Even when he traps squads in a pocket space, they break out within a matter of moments due to their sheer numbers and firepower. Georg spent most of his time creating spatial traps over and over to slow down the army's advance.

Cao Cao and Leonardo racked up a good number of kills themselves, the former using his holy weapon to stab through devils and the latter using his Longinus to create dozens of monsters to fight at his command. Even so, none of the humans compared in the slightest bit to Plagueis's contributions to the fight…not close at all. Plagueis would speed around the area slicing devils to bits, conjure Force waves to atomize squads, and throw and collapse large objects on enemies. The Muun killed thousands by himself, but as the current regiment dwindled to its last few soldiers, Plagueis remembered that there's still a lot more devils to kill yet.

With the forward regiment of 20,000 devils destroyed, the remaining 80,000 devils charged toward the research facility. Plagueis saw an enormous mass of people running and flying in the distance, each soldier determined to wreck the facility and its defenders. The Muun wiped some sweat off his face then looked back at the Hero Faction members.

"The rest of the army is approaching," Plagueis yelled. "Concentrate your efforts on limiting the number of soldiers entering through the gap in the shield dome, or else we will be surrounded."

Cao Cao and the other humans understood his order. Plagueis also kept the _Mundane _hidden from the action so far, worried that the devils will switch their focus and concentrate their firepower on the starship instead. He knows that the _Mundane _can soak up serious amounts of punishment, but Plagueis doesn't know if the devils have any magic attacks or spells that can pierce through the starship's strong shielding and damage the hull. The _Mundane _is such a crucial tool to getting back home that Plagueis would rather see himself or his Master get seriously injured than risk the starship being disabled or destroyed. However, with the sheer number of soldiers approaching and him wanting to get this battle done and over with quickly, Plagueis decided to call the _Mundane _for aerial support.

"Brexan, Herman, I need you to conduct bombing runs near the hole in the dome," Plagueis ordered over the comlink. "Avoid returning fire if possible."

"Roger," Brexan replied. "Acquiring target location now."

The _Mundane _materialized into view and swayed to the left to set up for its first bombing run.

[…]

Tenebrous spun his blades so fast that they turned into circular shields, using them to deflect Seraselbes's dark spear bombardment and Indra's barrage of individual Vajra lightning bolts. Tenebrous used the Force to waken the giant set of machinery surrounding the power core on the floor, and with sets of hidden circuits and hydraulics, the mechanism lifted everyone in the air on separate platforms. The Bith used his Jar'Kai sequences on the platform that rose slightly higher than the rest, clashing against the blades of Shiva, Melvazoa and Regalzerva. He blocked and dodged longer ranged attacks using acrobatics and Force barriers all while spinning his blades in clean and aggressive archs that put the three blade wielders in a constant state of defense.

Shiva thought about his current options, regretting that he didn't recruit more people for his task force. The original plan was to use the Greek gods and demigods to tire the Sith before they reached the central chamber, where they would be weak enough to be defeated by Shiva and his team. The Sith have proven themselves to be far more powerful than anyone ever imagined, and Shiva was thankful that they are only fighting Tenebrous and not both lords at the same time. Judging by Tenebrous's lack of fatigue, the Greek warriors did nothing to weaken the Bith before he arrived in the chamber. Shiva then began to believe that it was perhaps a good thing that they didn't recruit more members, seeing that all the other gods throughout the world are vastly inferior to the gods fighting Tenebrous now and likely wouldn't provide much help in the fight.

Shiva recalled that the presence of lesser gods fighting Bane years ago might have acted as a hindrance rather than a benefit, seeing that Shiva, Vishnu and Indra (with Ophis's blessings and Ajuka's formulas) fought better against Bane than all the other gods combined. The deaths of several weaker gods might have also played on the minds of the others during that fight, reducing their focus, teamwork and overall combat ability. And if they ended up being a hindrance when fighting against Bane, they certainly wouldn't provide any benefit against Tenebrous.

Also, Shiva now had Ophis engaging in direct combat rather than having her use her blessings. Him and the other Hindu gods are already significantly enhanced by their armor sets, and the ExE gods are already so powerful that any benefits they received from Ophis's blessings would be negligible. Shiva concluded that Ophis is powerful enough to inflict serious damage, so he had her fighting instead. What is rather interesting, whether Tenebrous knew this or not, is that Ophis and Indra are the weakest members of the task force and are equal in magical power. However, Indra is arguably the better fighter and smarter tactician.

The towering platforms now reached their final heights around the chamber, many of them revealing coolant systems and gas tanks in their underlying structures. Tenebrous raised his left hand in the air and unleashed powerful Force lightning that arched out in all directions. The omnidirectional Force storm struck the shields of all foes with some bolts crackling down the platform columns. Magic circles melted, coolant tanks shattered, and metal sparked as the hundreds of red lightning forks enveloped the area immediately around Tenebrous. Just as the storm destroyed the last of the gods' magic shields, Tenebrous ended the lightning barrage and pushed his hands out to his sides, creating a Force wave that spread out in all directions.

The gods were launched off the platforms and fell a few hundred feet before recovering in mid-air. They hovered in place while gazing up at Tenebrous who had several large objects under his telekinetic control. The Bith rained down detached platform tops and machinery on his opponents with a lack of strain that resembled a child throwing plastic toys everywhere. The gods dodged the raining debris as they flew up to meet Tenebrous head on, however, four of them were hit by some platforms which sent them plummeting to the ground.

Melvazoa, Resetoras, Seraselbes, Vishnu and Indra ascended over the top platform and fired ranged magic attacks at Tenebrous. The Bith held his hands forward, freezing all incoming magic attacks in place before they could reach him, then with a gesture of his right hand, he summoned fire from the sparks of broken wires on a column. In hardly a moment, the ball of fire grew into a huge blazing inferno that circled like a tornado, and with another gesture, Tenebrous sent the flames hurtling toward the five gods. The flames hit against defensive magic circles in a continuous barrage, and while the gods were preoccupied with the fire, Tenebrous launched the frozen magic attacks back at their users. The masses of magic shattered the remaining defense shields and bashed the gods into the side of the chamber, damaging their bodies and shaking the entire area.

Tenebrous jumped off his platform and freefell for hundreds of feet toward the four gods on the ground. The Bith used the Force to absorb the energy of him hitting the ground and disperse it in all directions, creating a shockwave that broke the ground and knocked three gods of their feet. Tenebrous sped forward and clashed blades with Shiva while Brahma, Regalzerva and Ophis got back up on their feet.

Tenebrous stared into the eyes of the team's strongest member and said, "I thought the God of Destruction would put up a better fight!"

Shiva grimaced and pushed harder against Tenebrous's blades. The Bith then broke the blade lock and charged toward the other three gods. Slashing through Brahma's magic circles, he then unleashed a blinding flurry of lightsaber attacks to break off large pieces of the god's armored chest plate and damage the underlying flesh. Shiva, Ophis and Regalzerva fired at Tenebrous's back while Brahma tried to flank around the side. Being the one with the least amount of combat experience, Brahma was the first member to make a mistake large enough to cost him his life. Tenebrous dodged the attacks and outmaneuvered Brahma toward the front, plunging both blades through the torso area he recently damaged. The god stumbled backwards a few paces with two holes through his heart, then he fell on his back dead.

Brahma's death caused the three witnesses to attack Tenebrous more aggressively. The other five gods flew down and rejoined the duel with Indra and Vishnu attacking from above. The Bith formed a Force bubble around himself that protected against magic attacks and slashing blades, then as he threw his arms out to the sides and arched his back, Tenebrous spawned a Force repulse that violently launched the gods around like ragdolls into the walls and across the chamber. Towering platform columns fell as the spherical shockwave disintegrated the metal and stone that kept them standing, creating flying debris that scattered everywhere. Tenebrous then sped toward Seraselbes, the first god to stand back up and the closest one to the Dark Lord. Still dazed from the telekinetic explosion, Seraselbes struggled to fend off the Bith's furious assault; whatever magic circles she created were used purely for defense. Tenebrous smashed through magic shields with his blades as more circles spawned to block his swords, and unfortunately for Seraselbes, her shield regeneration couldn't keep up with the Sith Lord's attacks. Tenebrous then maneuvered around the last two shields with a burst of speed and plunged the tip of his lightsaber through the god's left eye.

This dirty move bypassed Seraselbes's insanely durable flesh on the rest of her body and melted her brain. Tenebrous pulled the lightsaber out of her head and turned to face the seven gods who had recovered and watched Seraselbes's body drop to the floor. Regalzerva was especially angry at Tenebrous for brutally killing his sister through a vulnerable area, and with his giant battle axe, the male ExE god interlocked with Tenebrous's blades with an overhead slash.

The other gods rushed in with attacks of their own to support Regalzerva.

[…]

Plagueis atomized ten more devils with a Force wave that rocked the earth beneath him. Behind him and to his sides was a small army of monsters recreated by Leonardo's Annihilation Maker to replace the squads of monsters destroyed by the artificial devils. As the monsters attacked devils along their flanks, Plagueis zoned in on the platoon of devils charging in at him and the Hero Faction gung-ho style. With outstretched arms, Plagueis unleashed a storm of Force lightning so large that it covered the whole landscape in front of him. Countless blue lightning forks incinerated both the land and the devils as fires ignited between the buildings and out the dome gap. The electricity died out when over a thousand devils were either cooked like turkeys or outright cremated from the face of the planet.

More devils approached the dome shield when Georg's pocket barriers and magic walls failed from overwhelming firepower. Leonardo regrouped his monsters and ordered them to slow the advance of the next waves of enemies.

Heracles gazed out at the new mass of soldiers approaching in the distance. "How many more of these damn bastards are there?"

"Too many," Siegfried said while catching his breath. "I don't know if I can keep it up for much longer."

"Keep fighting guys!" Cao Cao shouted in the distance as word of encouragement. "Just focus on supporting Plagueis. Victory is near!"

Much of the enemy force has fallen, but there are still tens of thousands of artificial devils to kill.

Plagueis opened the comm channel to the _Mundane_ and said, "Commence another attack run."

"Yes sir," Brexan replied on the comlink.

The starship appeared into view and dove down for a third bombing run. A barrage of laser cannon bolts rained down on hundreds of devils, smashing through magic shields and melting people upon contact. The Hero Faction members watched the _Mundane _fire salvo after salvo of laser cannon bolts, thankful for the brief rest period and grateful that Plagueis is doing most of the killing.

[…]

Regalzerva gasped for breath as his body was lifted into the air by an external force. Tenebrous Force choked the god while he fought the others in close combat, using his mental focus to apply constant pressure on Regalzerva without the need for a gesture. The malevolent god was incapacitated for a while until Tenebrous ceased his telekinetic hold over him, and for several moments afterward, Regalzerva coughed on all fours while regaining his strength. By the time he returned to his feet, Tenebrous was using a horrible, otherworldly power on Vishnu and Resetoras. From the Bith's left hand, an entangled web of purplish energy leeched on the two gods, draining them of their vitality and slowing them down considerably. Tenebrous continued his application of Force drain until Vishnu and Resetoras were too weak to even stand, and once they fell to their knees, the Dark Lord used one last burst of effort to suck up the remains of their life essences. The two gods died as corpses that looked worse than lifeless; their pale, shriveled skin and darkened eyes made them look like mummies drying under the sunlight.

Regalzerva joined in with the surviving members to attack Tenebrous once more. In a change of tactics, the five gods distanced themselves from the Sith Lord and spawned magic circles around him. They formed layer upon layer of circular shields surrounding Tenebrous in a box shape with the hopes of sealing him in place. Rather than smashing himself out, Tenebrous used the power of Force blind to overload the optic nerves in everyone's eyes and render them temporarily blind, causing the magic shields to dissipate one by one as the gods lost concentration. Melvazoa was the first one to regain eyesight, and after rubbing his eyes, he could see Tenebrous slowly walking toward Regalzerva who was on the ground injured.

The Bith had his back turned to Melvazoa and seemed to forget that the other malevolent god was nearby. Melvazoa took this as a perfect opportunity to strike down the Sith Lord while he's unaware. Supercharging his wrist blades with as much magical energy as possible, Melvazoa sprinted as fast as he could toward the Dark Lord knowing that this could be the only chance of landing a fatal blow on Tenebrous. The god stabbed his blades through the alien's back with the ends of the weapons sticking out from the other side of the torso. Melvazoa was glad to see the pool of blood forming at the Dark Lord's feet, glad to have avenged his fallen sister.

But the person he stabbed wasn't Tenebrous…

Tenebrous's body turned into that of Regalzerva. Melvazoa was stumped, unable to understand how his eyes could betray him so badly as to make him stab his own brother from behind. Melvazoa had channeled so much energy into his blades that he killed his older brother in a single blow. As the god tried to figure out what happened, Tenebrous appeared directly behind him with a smile under his respirator, content that his Force illusion worked. The Bith then grabbed Melvazoa's head with both hands and shot Force lightning through the god's body. Melvazoa's muscles seized up and spasmed as the insane voltage fried him inside and out, and after withstanding the electric current for several seconds straight, Melvazoa was weakened to the point of near-death. Tenebrous let go of the god's head and walked away as soon as Melvazoa dropped to the ground with his brother's corpse.

The Bith then used the Force to lift a colossal pillar high in the air and send it hurtling down at Melvazoa to finish him off. Shiva, Indra and Ophis had just regained their eyesight when they saw the massive column crush Melvazoa with tremendous force. Tenebrous turned around to face the three survivors who were preparing to attack him from long range.

Shiva shot a dense energy beam from the tip of his trident at the Sith Lord, but Tenebrous dodged it and reappeared at the other side of the chamber. With Ophis shooting green beams from her hands and Indra summoning his Vajra lightning, the three gods tried to hit the alien who continued to avoid the incoming firepower by dashing around the area. Trails of destruction littered the chamber as Tenebrous ran and leaped around like a demon trying to close in on his enemies. The Bith then came to a halt ten meters away from the trio and formed a Force barrier in front of himself that held a different invisible shape from a bubble. Instead as the three gods shot their ranged attacks simultaneously, Tenebrous formed his barrier in the shape of a mirror, refracting the attacks away from himself and back at the nearest foe. Ophis's beams, along with Shiva and Indra's armor-enhanced attacks, struck the Infinite Dragon God straight in the stomach, launching her back into the far wall of the chamber. The magical energy in the attacks were powerful enough to blast away her clothing, sear her flesh and damage her insides to the point where she laid on the ground motionless. She didn't get back up.

Only the two Hindu gods remained. Shiva, with newfound focus and aggression, charged forward and slashed his trident with greater speed and ferocity than before. Tenebrous parried the attacks and used both his lightsaber and the Dark Sword to push back Shiva with strong blade sequences. The Bith acknowledged Shiva as the best and strongest fighter; ever since the beginning of the fight, he knew this god was special and above everyone the mythological factions had to offer. Tenebrous put Shiva into a defensive backpedal while dodging the Vajra lightning bolts shooting from Indra's magic circles. At one point in the duel, Tenebrous roundhouse kicked Shiva in the side of the head, making the god stumble off to the side disoriented.

Tenebrous used this time to rapidly build up Force power inside of him and unleash it in the form of Force destruction. This telekinetic power enables the user to throw a massive energy field in any direction that well surpasses powerful Force waves. The energy field struck Indra with tremendous force, shattering the anterior side of his magic enhancement armor and sending him flying into the far wall. Indra coughed up blood and struggled to move as he was buried in a man-sized crater inside the thick wall.

Shiva became especially aggressive and bold when slashing at Tenebrous in another offensive charge. He had forgone blade defense and opted for pure offense with the hopes of landing just a small cut on the alien, letting his armor protect him from Tenebrous's counterattacks. The god even tried to grab the Bith's wrists and yank the blades from his hands, but that tactic failed badly. Tenebrous held his blades in an "X" formation and interlocked with Shiva's overhead slash.

"Your desperation is pointless," Tenebrous mocked. "You have failed. Nothing will save you, Shiva."

Tenebrous turned his blades to the side and disarmed Shiva. The trident flew several feet behind the god and landed on the hard stone floor, it's pronged blades refracting the red light that emitted from Great Red's power container overhead. Tenebrous lifted the god in the air with a Force grip and sent him hurtling into the far wall, dragging his body upward into the metal and stone for several meters. The Sith Lord then smashed Shiva into the two adjacent walls, then finally crashed him into the chamber floor next to his trident. Shiva got up on all fours and stared at the ground, breathing heavily as the Dark Lord walked toward him with blades drawn.

When Tenebrous was less than ten meters away from the God of Destruction, something happened that completely caught him off guard…

Shiva's eyes turned into yellow light as a massive surge of power erupted from his core, manifesting itself as a monstrous aura of magical power that sent Tenebrous flying into the wall behind him. Having the wind knocked out of him, Tenebrous saw a thick beam of light cut through the ceiling above them and arrive down on Shiva. This beam of energy vaporized the material immediately around it, wide enough to where Tenebrous could see the sky through hundreds of meters of earth above them. Among the clouds was a gigantic magic circle two kilometers wide, the mechanism that is sending the beam of yellow energy down on Shiva. The whole planet seemed to shake as Shiva roared from the immense amount of energy flowing into him and his trident.

At the other side of the chamber, Indra scrambled to take cover from the falling rubble all while observing history's greatest power-up. Shiva had activated his strongest form, akin to a Juggernaut Drive but not quite the same. Unknown to all the other Hindu gods, Shiva's armor and magic enhancements came with an overload drive that summoned power straight from the Hindu realm to relay into him, multiplying his power several times beyond his already enhanced self. This is a type of last resort ability, however, as the taxing nature of the power-up fed on Shiva's life force, diminishing his lifespan by hundreds of years.

Under his respirator, Tenebrous's puckered lips twitched in concern as the God of Destruction gathered the last bit of energy into himself. The overhead light disappeared and revealed the scorched floor that had melted so much that it turned into lava. Shiva then channeled his power into the tip of his trident and shot a dense yellow beam so bright that it far outshined Great Red's device overhead. Tenebrous threw up a strong Force bubble that protected him from the attack, but even then he could feel the sheer heat and intensity of the continuous beam of magical energy. Tenebrous realized first-hand how much that power-up multiplied Shiva's power; it was almost as though the god had turned into a completely new enemy. The heat and force of the energy felt like it came from the layers of a blue star, and it was so bright that Tenebrous had to use the Force to shield his eyes from going blind. Shiva continued to roar in a bloodlusted rage while channeling more and more energy through his trident.

Tenebrous applied the power of tutaminis into his Force barrier to absorb some of the energy into himself. He could feel the immense power coursing through his body, and with his right hand he dispelled that energy along with some of his own power back at Shiva in the form of red Force lightning. The lightning bolts, which shined equally as bright as the trident beam, struck Shiva all over his body. The intensity of the lightning forks would have vaporized anyone else on contact, but the power-up enhanced Shiva's flesh and armor durability to ludicrous levels, which allowed him to tank a continuous stream of electric voltage.

The array of energy acted as a superconducting loop that shot at Tenebrous and redirected back at Shiva. However, the God of Destruction ran into some problems. With no way to absorb and dispel the energy of the lightning forks like Tenebrous can do with his tutaminis, Shiva's body took considerable amounts of damage since the energy had nowhere else to go. Shiva's exoskeleton armor melted to his skin and his flesh blackened as the red lightning damaged him further and further. It came to a point where the god suffered so much trauma that he no longer had the strength to sustain his energy beam.

Both the energy beam and the lightning bolts disappeared as the Hindu god dropped to his knees in defeat. Tenebrous approached Shiva while using the Force to break the core protecting Great Red's device, and in the distance, Indra watched as the power device floated toward Tenebrous and landed in his hands.

Tenebrous studied Shiva who struggled to look back up at him. "You are strong, Shiva. Your abilities would even put Jedi Masters to the test, but in the end, you were no match for the dark side."

The Bith looked around the devastated chamber and saw that Indra was still alive.

"One thing I like about being in this world is the opportunity to leave survivors behind," said Tenebrous, "witnesses to carry on the accounts of traumatic events. I cannot afford to do that back in my home galaxy; therefore I will relish this moment for the rest of my life."

Tenebrous turned around and walked away with Great Red's power container, getting ready to help Plagueis and the Hero Faction back on the surface. Shiva then fell forward and laid motionless on the ground. Indra limped across the chamber with his torso hunched forward, balancing himself over debris and other objects. When he arrived at Shiva's body, Indra lowered to his knees and observed the god's injuries. Shiva suffered extreme burns and several parts of his armor had fused to his flesh, making the charred man look even worse. Indra checked his vital signs and found that Shiva is still alive, but barely.

Lord Sakra lowered his head feeling absolutely hopeless.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

After defeating the artificial devil army and returning to Cao Cao's base to experiment with Great Red's power device, Tenebrous and Plagueis created a stable portal that led back to their home galaxy. They created it solely with their own power not needing any of the other devices or mythological beings for a power boost, which shows their immense connection to the dark side. Before they entered the portal using the _Mundane_, Plagueis snuck his stash of Phoenix Tears aboard the starship using the Force to conceal its presence from his Master, and as an extra precaution, he actively manipulated Tenebrous away from its hiding spot with subtle deception and tiny seeds of telepathic fallacies.

The Sith Lords left the Underworld immediately having no interest in remaining involved with the ongoing mythological war. They let Cao Cao and the Hero Faction deal with those affairs, and the Sith Lords have no idea what will happen to the Order of Bane and the devil separatists in the process…not like they care anyway. Tenebrous and Plagueis also brought Great Red's container with them back to their galaxy, having stored it in the ship's cargo bay for future experimentation.

When they arrived back in their home galaxy, many interesting things happened. Once they awoke with their starship being in the exact same spot in space as when they disappeared from the galaxy, the galactic clock showed that they had only been gone for three days. They checked in with relay stations at multiple star systems and each one confirmed that only three standard days have passed in their galaxy. Another intriguing (and disappointing) thing is that Great Red's magical power had disappeared from the device's interior. The Sith Lords inspected the ship and failed to find any evidence of the energy escaping the device or the ship through conventional means. Tenebrous's Dark Sword was still in its sheath (although its original state was already altered by Sith magic) and the recordings of VY Canis Majoris are still present in the ship's video logs.

They theorized that the transition across space and time might influence pure energy in some way, especially unstable and reactive energy like Great Red's that was only quelled by the stabilizing technology of the container. Unlike physical matter, the magic's energized properties likely allowed it to be easily manipulated and consumed by the shifting space-time continuum, ripped apart at the atomic level to mold with the particles in the fabric of space. The Sith Lords were thankful that the magic's decomposition was peaceful and not destructive, especially when the sheer potency of Great Red's power could have easily erased them from existence under the right circumstances.

Plagueis had yet to check on his Phoenix Tear case to see if the potions survived, but he wanted to wait until his Master is well clear of the ship elsewhere. The Sith Lords are currently at Muunilinst docked inside the High Port Space Center, an orbital city located in geosynchronous orbit above the planet's capital city of Harnaidan. They had a meeting with the Chairman of the InterGalactic Banking Clan and his fellow entrepreneurs, coming up with a story to explain why they were a few days late. The meeting was oriented around Tenebrous's new starship design and the Bith's proposal for funding and production rights under the Banking Clan. Plagueis acted as the Bith's sponsor and advertiser for the starship design.

Darth Plagueis, in his public guise as Hego Damask, walked out of the elevator that brought him and several other Muuns to the docking bay lounge. Plagueis said goodbye to the Banking Clan associates and walked toward a lone Muun waiting for him at the other end of the hallway. That Muun is Larsh Hill, the financer and operating officer of Damask Holdings and Plagueis's close friend. Larsh looked to the side and spotted his boss walking toward him.

"Magister Damask," Larsh greeted, "how did the meeting go?"

"Far better than predicted," Damask replied. "The Chairman was greatly impressed with the starship design, more so than any past proposals. Forty percent more funding than expected was obtained, and Damask Holdings will receive an extra five percent commission on each starship sold."

Darth Tenebrous, in his guise as Rugess Nome, fascinated the Chairman and all the entrepreneurs with his latest design. They were always inspired by his work, but this starship proposal was the greatest one to date. Bids and offers were thrown left and right as each top-tier businessman and investor fought for the highest shares. Larsh couldn't attend since the private meeting was only reserved for the Chairman, Tenebrous, Plagueis and the owners/leaders of large production companies.

Larsh's eyes lit up in excitement. "Fantastic! I knew Nome would come out on top, as he always does. What will the Bith do with all that extra money?"

"We haven't discussed that far yet," said Damask. "As for us, I plan on opening more accounting facilities over the next ten years, so long as our future finances remain consistent."

"That shouldn't be a problem," said Larsh. "I will make sure that the contract's policies are upheld with our clients."

"Excellent," Damask nodded.

There was a long period of silence between the two Muuns until Larsh brought up another topic.

"There's something else I wanted to discuss," Larsh spoke, "something more personal."

"Of course," Damask acknowledged. "Walk with me."

The two Muuns strode down the long hallway that connected to several docking bays.

"My wife and I are planning on having a child," Larsh announced.

_A child? _Plagueis thought. This is surprising news.

"Congratulations," Damask commended. "When do you plan on having the conception?"

"I don't know. Probably not for a while," Larsh replied. "With our busy schedules, it may be a few years or more before we decide to have the pregnancy, but at least we have the plan in mind."

"It's a good start," Damask agreed. "Have you two decided on a name yet?"

"If it's a boy, we will name him San," Larsh nodded, "and if it's a girl, she will be named Lana."

Plagueis noticed a slight trembling in Larsh's voice as he spoke about the female name.

"You seem worried about the possibility of having a girl," Damask pointed out. "Is it because your child is expected to become the next Chairman?"

Larsh's head bobbed a few times. "I will love and cherish my child regardless of its gender, but I'm not sure if the Banking Clan will accept a female Chairman."

Despite the Muuns being an advanced and wise species, they still have their gender norms especially in the higher classes of their social hierarchy.

"You have a valid point of concern, but it may not turn out so badly as you think," Damask explained. "Over the past thousand years there have been four female Chairmen; each one was revered greatly for their contributions to the Banking Clan and the galactic economy, though it took some time for them to be seen in a positive light. I admit that it would take more effort and work for your female child to be elected, and as Chairman she may face more scrutiny and criticism than what a son would."

Damask then said, "But I assure you that your child will fulfill his or her destiny as Chairman. I will use all the knowledge and resources I have to secure the position and ensure that your child is prepared for the responsibilities and challenges that may arise. San Hill or Lana Hill will be a respected and admired member of the Banking Clan for years to come."

Plagueis wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste, not when the future Chairman of the galaxy's biggest financial organization can be directly tutored and influenced under the guidance of a Sith Lord in disguise. Plagueis doesn't care if the child is born with both sets of genitals and three heads, he's going to do whatever he can to ensure that the Grand Plan moves forward.

"Thank you so much for your wisdom, Magister," Larsh bowed with tears in his eyes.

Damask acknowledged the praise with a nod. He then halted and said, "I must attend to other matters. Meet me at The Works on Coruscant in one week's time. There, we will negotiate with a new industrial contact I recently met."

"See you then," Larsh shook Damask's hand farewell.

Both Muuns went their separate ways down the hallway. Plagueis entered a different section of the space port and strode toward the private bay where the _Mundane _was docked. Plagueis decided to go check on his Phoenix Tears while Tenebrous was on the planet's surface doing other business.

After clearing the security checkpoint, Plagueis walked across the large bay and entered his starship through the ventral ramp. He passed by the cargo hold and opened one of the food cabinets, reaching in a hidden space along the cabinet's left wall. Plagueis pulled the case out and set it down on the floor. He opened the armored case and was happy to see that the Phoenix Tears seemed to be intact and unchanged. Whether anything happened to the potions on a microscopic level, Plagueis can't tell yet, but irregardless he has something to work with.

"_There is much work to be done_," Plagueis thought with a confident smirk on his face.


	11. Author's Endnote

I hope you guys enjoyed the sequel! As you may or may not know, there won't be any more stories to this Star Wars + DxD crossover. From now on, I will be doing Star Wars stories and crossovers with other universes so I can create new story content and attract different audiences. I already have a plan set up for my next story, and over the next while I will be looking over Star Wars and anime material.

I will post the teaser for my new story in a few weeks, so be on the lookout for that in the forums. Once I post the story, I will have an Author's Note describing some basic details and progress updates. I will also post the story link here if you can't find my new story anywhere.

Edit: Here's the link to my new story: s/13589273/1/Highschool-of-the-Dead-Sith-Conquest


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